As promised (or threatened, depending on your tastes!) ...
So. A while ago Nicky put forward a challenge to give another person's reaction to the news of Hephaistion's approaching nuptials. This is what I came up with. The ending did give me a bit of grief, but it ended up doing what it does. I will say here and now that I don't actually think that what the ending kind of foreshadows is how things really played out. Unless it doesn't foreshadow anything at all, and I should shut up and let you bloody read it for yourself. Yeah. Good call.
Title: Less Than Amusing (<--- see, I seriously can't do decent titles!)
Summary: Krateros has cause to think about Hephaistion's marriage.
Rating: Heh. G? I don't know. No sex, some swearing, not a kiddies story, and based utterly on my own work.
Feedback: Sure. Go for it.
Krateros thought that it was, quite simply, the most amusing thing that he had heard in a long time. When he had first been told, he had laughed so hard he had almost choked on his wine, spluttering and hiccoughing like a drowning man until someone pounded him on the back hard enough to rattle his teeth, and he still had not been able to wipe the smile from his face. Even now, days later, the thought of it could make him smirk. Hephaistion, taking a wife? The very idea was enough to make a stone laugh.
Hephaistion was not the only one - Krateros was getting married too, it seemed, and never mind what he might think of it. Another of Alexandros’ grand ideas, this … a great marriage, bringing his people together, binding them with contracts and kin and vows. Krateros decided that he didn’t much care one way or the other for his own sake - he was hardly pleased to be taking some barbarian girl to wife, but at least the girl had some merit, being a niece of the old Persian king, Darius. It would make him marriage kin to the king himself in a round-about way, which was an honour even if he had to suffer a barbarian girl in his bed to claim it. Krateros did not think it too great a hardship, though. He had had girls in his bed before and lived to tell of it. Rather enjoyed it, in fact. Hephaistion, on the other hand … ah, Krateros did not think that Hephaistion was going to enjoy this at all. Krateros was not above taking pleasure in that.
Susa was a relief after the march back from India. Krateros had not had to endure the hell of heat and thirst and death that had been the march through the Makran, but he had had to put up with Alexandros’ increasingly short temper and fanciful ideas of late. The man was more enamoured of his Persian subjects than ever, it seemed, or maybe he was simply still angry at his Macedonians for finally and emphatically telling him that they would put up with no more. Someone had had to; the young fool would have marched them all on to the very ends of the earth, if he had not been reined in. He had enough of a kingdom to attend to without hunting down more - and a man was not a god, no matter what an Egyptian oracle might say. It was time and past time that Alexandros realised that, and let his world become a more ordinary thing. Krateros was not the only one not getting any younger. They were all tired of marching, now. Susa might not be home, it might not be Macedon with its mountains and forests and good honest soil, but at least a man could take his ease there. There was no marching, and comfort after hardship with a feast to come and room, for once, to relax.
Krateros was doing just that now, leaning on a rail in a stable yard, watching young horses being put through their paces. Generally he cared little enough for this kind of thing; he preferred to do his fighting on foot, had little time for the high vaunting heroics of cavalry troops when there was real work to be done. He’d never much bothered with how a horse might be trained, either; as long as it did as he bid it and little else, he was content with that. He left the training of them to other men.
This, though, was too good to miss. He’d stumbled on it quite by luck - Eumenes had come here looking for Hephaistion to deal with some matter of policy or other, and Krateros had come looking for Eumenes to gripe about the state of his accommodations in this place that seemed fair bursting at the seems just lately, and they had both ended up side by side in the stable yard, watching Hephaistion getting himself rolled in the dust.
Krateros had no great liking for Eumenes - the man had never been anything more than a jumped up clerk as far as he was concerned, and never mind what Alexandros might or might not trust him with. He’d been Philippos’ before he was Alexandros’ though; they had that in common at least. They had both served the father before they got swept up by the son, they had both seen their world change around them because of it. Krateros was not entirely sure how he felt about that, most days. He had liked and admired Philippos, with his rough and ready ways and the sharp mind he kept hidden from his enemies; he had grieved when the man had died. Alexandros was a very different creature from anything that his father had been - and Krateros did not for a moment believe a word of that nonsense that that fool oracle had filled Alexandros’ head with about being the son of Zeus, Philippos was more than father enough for one man - his mind was a sharper thing again, and much less easy to understand. Krateros had spent enough hours trying to shout sense into that thick skull, and then watching Alexandros go ahead and do just as he pleased in spite of it, to know that. It was a good thing that the lad had always seemed to have the kind of luck the gods only bestowed on madmen and fools, or this whole thing would have come down years ago.
Eumenes, as far as Krateros could tell, felt the same. He’d liked Philippos and understood him, served him competently and well. He seemed to like Alexandros too, though Krateros had heard him remark that the king did have a gift for wearing at a man’s patience sometimes. The man served well for Alexandros too, even if he did have a way of getting above himself. Krateros resented him for that a little, but not so much that it mattered. He was just a bloody secretary after all, when a man got right down to it. Hephaistion, on the other hand, was a good deal more than just a secretary these days, though by rights he should have been no one at all. Krateros found that he resented that rather more.
Leaning still on the rail, he watched as Hephaistion rolled to his stomach and pushed himself to his feet, with a look on his face that told of both laughter and pain. Still striking, that face of his - more than striking if Krateros was telling it true, downright stunning in fact, though the man had to be past thirty now. Gods, they were all of them getting older. Krateros could remember when they had started this thing, and Hephaistion had been just another cavalryman and looking barely old enough to shave. He and the king both - Alexandros would be past thirty too then, if he thought about it. Or near enough. All of them getting older. A good thing they’d convinced Alexandros it was well past time to turn back. He snorted, and spoke to Eumenes without looking at him.
“So, how many times is that, so far?”
“That that horse has put him on the ground? Three, while I’ve been watching.”
“And I’ll wager he’s not so much as raised his voice to it, has he?”
“Of course not.” Eumenes sniffed at that, as if Krateros had suggested something outlandish. “He’ll snap at the clerks when his lists won’t tally, and he has no hesitation at all in snarling at me if he doesn’t like what I say - which is most of the time - but I’ve never heard him shout at a horse. The man has an odd sense of priorities.”
Krateros had always thought Eumenes a stiff little man, with his carefully precise diction and his lips perpetually thinned in disapproval, but he was sharp enough. Hephaistion did have an odd sense of priorities, if it came to that. There were times when Krateros was half sure that he lived and breathed for his precious bloody horses. Well, for his horses, and for Alexandros, to be fair. If someone had told him that Hephaistion was taking one of his horses to wife, that would have surprised him less than this other thing. Hephaistion had always been passionate about his horses. He had never been passionate about women at all.
The general watched as Hephaistion moved across the yard again. Quietly approaching the stallion that had knocked him to the ground, the man seemed to be speaking to it softly, or maybe even singing. Krateros would not have been surprised. The stallion was a young thing, all high head and laid back ears and quivering muscles that spoke of an animal ready to run or fight. Krateros knew a cure for that - a strong rope, and a handful of strong men, and let the animal fight itself to a standstill if it wanted to. Hephaistion, though, had nothing in his hands at all, and he was in there alone. Well, if he thought he could manage an unbroken stallion with only his voice and his hands, at least it made entertaining watching.
“Somebody,” Eumenes said quietly, “should tell him that this is not fitting. The Chiliarch of Alexandros’ empire should not be tumbling in the dust in a stable yard. This is what we have grooms for.” The man managed even to say it smoothly, without sneering. Krateros snorted.
“Hardly matters. Chiliarch … what’s that, when it’s at home?” It was not as if Hephaistion was a general of any standing after all, or had any strong and powerful kin who might influence the tides at court. If Eumenes was a jumped up clerk, then Hephaistion was not very much more, no matter what titles he might have been given. He was useful in his way, competent with what he did, but that was where it ended. Chiliarch. That made Krateros want to spit. What was that, to the likes of him? “More Persian nonsense no matter what name they give it, that’s all that is.”
“Perhaps.” Eumenes slanted a dark eyed glance at the other man, a thoughtful glittering thing. “But it’s Persian nonsense enough to win him a Royal Persian wife. Which is more than the rest of us are getting.”
Well. That was true. The women they would wed were well born, and some even royal kin, but no other was taking a Royal Persian princess. Only the king, and the king’s good friend. Krateros grunted and kicked at the lower rail of the yard, making the wood shake and boom and startling the young stallion into flinging up his head and crabbing sideways. Hephaistion glared at him over his shoulder, then turned his attention back to the horse.
“I could give you a hand with that, you know,” Krateros called out. “Nothing a good horsewhip wouldn’t fix.”
Hephaistion didn’t deign to answer that. He only raised one hand in a vulgar gesture, and set to pushing the stallion into moving again about the yard. Krateros spat in the dust.
“Aye, and you, and your bloody horse too,” he muttered. To Eumenes, he said; “Do you think it’s too late in my career for me to start sleeping with kings?”
The other man lifted an eyebrow. Krateros was impressed with how much scorn he could put in that. Eumenes said, “Too late to get the jump on that one, at any rate. He started early, with that. Besides, he’s prettier than you.”
In spite of himself, Krateros laughed. He ran a hand over his craggy, weather-worn face. Well, maybe Eumenes was not such an old stick, sometimes. “Aye, he is that. Probably prettier than his new wife, for that matter. Though if he treats his woman like he treats his horses, she’ll walk all over him. Too soft sometimes, that one. He won’t last a month.”
Eumenes, who would not have described Hephaistion as soft, only shrugged. “I don’t know how he treats his women. As far as I’ve seen, he doesn’t have any.”
“Never has, unless he’s been stashing them under rocks.” A biting fly was bothering at him, lighting on his bare arms and darting away. Krateros slapped at it. It was warm out here. Hephaistion and the horse both had a sweat up. “Doesn’t seem inclined that way.” That was dry; they both knew, after all, exactly what Hephaistion was inclined to, and women did not come into it.
“It would be a good thing,” Eumenes said, after a pause, “if he would remember his place, and his duty. He has work to do. And I,” he added, with a twist that could have soured honey, “cannot complete my own tasks without the Chiliarch’s say so.” That was more grating than any other thing, that he now had to answer to Hephaistion on matters civil. It was new enough still to bother him; it was not so long ago that he answered to no one but the king himself.
“Oh, he’s always been good at remembering his duty,” Krateros said, to be fair. “But he’s never been able to remember his place to save his life. He’d not be being wed to a Persian princess if he had, now would he?” In the yard, Hephaistion was doing something odd, pushing the horse to run and then turning away. The animal was beginning to turn to him, starting to follow where he led. Krateros could not for the life of him see what the man had done to get that. Then again, Krateros did not much care. It had been better when the horse had been setting him on his arse. “What work is he meant to be doing?”
“He is meant,” Eumenes said heavily, “to be overseeing the organization of this dratted marriage feast.” Another slanted, glittering look accompanied that. It was, Krateros realised, what passed for laughter in this man. He chuckled low and gave a grim smile.
“Ah, well no wonder he’s out here playing silly buggers with that horse instead. He’d not want to be organising his own wedding.” Hephaistion was good at organising things. Probably he was hoping that if he put off organising this particular thing, it would go away. Or that someone else would do it and make a botch of it. Except that Krateros had known Hephaistion for too long to believe that of him. What he’d said to Eumenes was true as well as merely fair; Hephaistion did take his duty seriously. Even the parts of it he did not especially like. “And speaking of this marriage feast, I need to talk to you about the accommodations around here. Getting a bit tight, I’d say.”
“They are indeed, and you’ll have to get in line for that.” Eumenes’ thin lips tightened briefly. “Alexandros is planning to make rather a spectacle of this thing. I’ve more musicians to find lodgings for than I know what to do with.”
Krateros did not like the sound of that. “Persian ones? Why in the name of Zeus’ buttocks would he want them? They sound like cats fucking.”
Eumenes did not flinch at the vulgarity. He only gave the general that sidelong, glittering glance again. Laughter. “Something very like that, yes.” Then the man relented a little, with the tiniest shrug of his narrow shoulders. “Lodge your request with the clerks. I’ll see what can be done.”
Krateros grunted. Too much of that sort of carry on, these days. Too much of having to speak to three different men to get a simple thing done. There had been a time when, if a man wanted a thing, he marched up to someone and asked for it. A trooper asked his officers, officers asked their commanders, commanders spoke to the generals and anyone could speak to the king. Now … Krateros scratched his beard, and tried to think when the last time was that he had spoken to Alexandros alone, without having to snarl his way through a horde of Persian hangers-on first. Things had changed. The king had changed. And soon, he would have his very own horde of Persian hangers-on, in the form of marriage kin he had not asked for in the first place.
The young stallion in the yards had calmed considerably. It was standing at Hephaistion’s shoulder now, nuzzling at him. The man was saying something low and soft to it, huffing breath at it, running an easy hand over the strong neck. So, that was another creature that Hephaistion had won over with his smile and his voice, and damned if Krateros could see how. Well, Krateros had never said that Hephaistion was not good at what he did - only that what he did hardly seemed to warrant the favour he got in return. Like, for example, a Royal Persian wife. If that could be said to be a favour. He wondered at it, out loud. Now it was Eumenes’ turn to snort.
“How far is it a favour?” He glanced at the other man again, but the glitter in his eyes now was not laughter at all. It was something harder, much more assessing. So it should have been, probably. Eumenes had been assessing the currents of courts and politics and power - and recording it all, too - for most of his life. He had seen it all before, or if he hadn’t seen it, he had read of it. Krateros, who was not exactly a novice when it came to the tides of power and influence and the ways in which it might be won, had found in the past that that was another thing he resented about Eumenes. The man always seemed to know too damned much. Eumenes went on. “It is, I think you’ll find, a very great favour, in spite of what Hephaistion may or may not prefer for his bed. Or it could be, if they play it to its conclusion.”
“What does that mean?”
“Had you thought,” Eumenes said, “what it will mean, that Hephaistion will be by marriage brother to the king?” He paused, then added as if Krateros might have forgotten, “Alexandros has no heirs, and his only brother by blood is that halfwit of Philippos’.”
Krateros made a harsh sound that was part laugh and part not. “If you’re thinking about the succession, and certain people being put in positions where they might benefit from hurrying it along, I’d scratch that idea right now. Hephaistion would no more see the king killed than he’d cut off his own balls and wear them for earrings.”
“I wasn’t thinking of anything so blunt. I’ll doubt Hephaistion’s motives sometimes, but not his loyalty. He’s nothing without Alexandros, and he knows it. He’d not want to see the king dead, it would take from him all the influence he has. And he’d never be able to take the throne in any case, he’s not got either the blood or the supporters for it. A regency maybe, if Alexandros ever sires a son to play regent for, but even that I’d doubt. No, I was thinking of something else. Something more far reaching than that. Something more …” Eumenes paused, for effect or simply to find the right word, Krateros didn’t care. Oratory interested him even less than fancy ways of training horses. “More dynastic.”
The general did not like the sound of that. He narrowed his eyes at the smaller man beside him. “What?”
For moment Eumenes did not respond. He looked instead into the yard, his expression thoughtful as Hephaistion did something soft and quiet with the young stallion, that now seemed to be eating out of his hand. Or nearly - it tossed its head up suddenly at the rope halter going over its brow, knocking Hephaistion back a pace. Hephaistion took it with his usual easy grace, not losing either balance or footing. He only steadied himself, soothed the animal, finished what he was doing. The horse whickered what sounded like a question; Hephaistion murmured what sounded like an answer, too far away to make out any words. The biting fly was back, bothering Eumenes this time. He waved it away and spoke low and quiet. “Hephaistion’s not of royal blood, but through this woman, his children will be. You know Alexandros as well as I do, you know how he likes to make the grand gestures. You know too, what those two … well. One of Alexandros’ children, wed to one of his … that’s all it would take to put Hephaistion’s blood on the throne in three lands, Macedon, Persia, Egypt. And this, for a man who is no one much of his own accord, and who can claim no more birthright than his father’s lands and herds. A valley in Macedon’s hills, a score or two of horses. He came from that. But think on this, Krateros … if they take this as far as that, one day, your grandchildren could be calling his, king.”
There was something distasteful about that, something that made Krateros want to spit again. The thought of Hephaistion’s marriage did not seem quite so amusing, now. It seemed, in fact, like a low, looming threat. A future in which Hephaistion’s influence would be passed down in blood, while his own … his own … what? Lands, perhaps wealth - but what else would he leave, besides fireside tales and a old dented shield that would hang on a wall somewhere, until some grandson of his grandson cast it out and the last of his memories with it? And for that grandson of his grandson to take his oath of fealty and look up into cool grey eyes that had lived before in another man’s face, Hephaistion’s eyes in the face of the one who was king, while he himself was dust … Krateros did not like the idea of that. He did not like the idea of that at all.
Not that there was a cursed thing that he could do about it. If it would happen, it would happen - Hephaistion would wed as Alexandros had decreed, sire children as faithfully and as competently as he did every other thing the king asked him to, see those children raised to a station beyond anything their father’s blood or merit should have given them claim to. Not so amusing now. Not so amusing by half.
“He has to get children, first.” It came out grated between his teeth, something solid he could say. Eumenes nodded at it, seeing the other man understand what he had been told.
“He does. But I should think he will manage that. He breeds horses, after all. Even if he has as little experience of women as you think he does, he’ll know how to go about the thing.” Dry, that was. Very dry.
There was a pause, and then; “Do you think,” Krateros said, in a stony, tight voice, “that this is what Alexandros is planning for? Do you really?”
“Does it matter? If the king plans it or not, or if he simply stumbles over it?” It was hard to tell sometimes, with Alexandros. “The result is the same. Royal blood is royal blood, and Hephaistion’s children will have it. You don’t think that Alexandros is giving him the Persian princess by accident, do you?” Eumenes’ tone seemed to suggest that if a man did think that, he would be the worst kind of fool. Krateros was not a fool. He did not think that for a moment.
“Of course,” Eumenes was saying, “there are variables. She may be barren. The children may sicken in infancy. He could take some local ill and die of it. Alexandros may even tire of him, though I think it unlikely.” In fact, he thought the sky would fall before that would happen, but he was a man who considered all options. He gave his narrow shoulders another quick hitch, as if it all hardly mattered to him. In truth it did not - he did not like Hephaistion, but that had little enough to do with the way the world turned. This was merely politics, and power, and himself assessing what might be. As he had always done, and always would. It was how a man stayed afloat. “The gods have many ways of putting paid to the plans of men.”
“Aye,” Krateros agreed slowly, watching the young man in the horse yard with eyes that matched his face; hard and set. “Aye, so they do.” Hephaistion had finished with the young stallion now, was talking with a groom and laughing about some bloody thing. He was all over dust and sweat, and when he moved he limped a little from one of his falls, or maybe a kick in the leg. The stallion, its bright bay coat dark with sweat, was standing calmly, consenting to be scratched, won over into trust by that quiet voice and those cool, steady eyes. Fealty, or dust. The gods were fickle, like that. The gods, and men - both could be vengeful things when it suited them.
Nothing was set in stone. Not yet it wasn’t. Not by a long bloody way.
Title: Less Than Amusing (<--- see, I seriously can't do decent titles!)
Summary: Krateros has cause to think about Hephaistion's marriage.
Rating: Heh. G? I don't know. No sex, some swearing, not a kiddies story, and based utterly on my own work.
Feedback: Sure. Go for it.
Krateros thought that it was, quite simply, the most amusing thing that he had heard in a long time. When he had first been told, he had laughed so hard he had almost choked on his wine, spluttering and hiccoughing like a drowning man until someone pounded him on the back hard enough to rattle his teeth, and he still had not been able to wipe the smile from his face. Even now, days later, the thought of it could make him smirk. Hephaistion, taking a wife? The very idea was enough to make a stone laugh.
Hephaistion was not the only one - Krateros was getting married too, it seemed, and never mind what he might think of it. Another of Alexandros’ grand ideas, this … a great marriage, bringing his people together, binding them with contracts and kin and vows. Krateros decided that he didn’t much care one way or the other for his own sake - he was hardly pleased to be taking some barbarian girl to wife, but at least the girl had some merit, being a niece of the old Persian king, Darius. It would make him marriage kin to the king himself in a round-about way, which was an honour even if he had to suffer a barbarian girl in his bed to claim it. Krateros did not think it too great a hardship, though. He had had girls in his bed before and lived to tell of it. Rather enjoyed it, in fact. Hephaistion, on the other hand … ah, Krateros did not think that Hephaistion was going to enjoy this at all. Krateros was not above taking pleasure in that.
Susa was a relief after the march back from India. Krateros had not had to endure the hell of heat and thirst and death that had been the march through the Makran, but he had had to put up with Alexandros’ increasingly short temper and fanciful ideas of late. The man was more enamoured of his Persian subjects than ever, it seemed, or maybe he was simply still angry at his Macedonians for finally and emphatically telling him that they would put up with no more. Someone had had to; the young fool would have marched them all on to the very ends of the earth, if he had not been reined in. He had enough of a kingdom to attend to without hunting down more - and a man was not a god, no matter what an Egyptian oracle might say. It was time and past time that Alexandros realised that, and let his world become a more ordinary thing. Krateros was not the only one not getting any younger. They were all tired of marching, now. Susa might not be home, it might not be Macedon with its mountains and forests and good honest soil, but at least a man could take his ease there. There was no marching, and comfort after hardship with a feast to come and room, for once, to relax.
Krateros was doing just that now, leaning on a rail in a stable yard, watching young horses being put through their paces. Generally he cared little enough for this kind of thing; he preferred to do his fighting on foot, had little time for the high vaunting heroics of cavalry troops when there was real work to be done. He’d never much bothered with how a horse might be trained, either; as long as it did as he bid it and little else, he was content with that. He left the training of them to other men.
This, though, was too good to miss. He’d stumbled on it quite by luck - Eumenes had come here looking for Hephaistion to deal with some matter of policy or other, and Krateros had come looking for Eumenes to gripe about the state of his accommodations in this place that seemed fair bursting at the seems just lately, and they had both ended up side by side in the stable yard, watching Hephaistion getting himself rolled in the dust.
Krateros had no great liking for Eumenes - the man had never been anything more than a jumped up clerk as far as he was concerned, and never mind what Alexandros might or might not trust him with. He’d been Philippos’ before he was Alexandros’ though; they had that in common at least. They had both served the father before they got swept up by the son, they had both seen their world change around them because of it. Krateros was not entirely sure how he felt about that, most days. He had liked and admired Philippos, with his rough and ready ways and the sharp mind he kept hidden from his enemies; he had grieved when the man had died. Alexandros was a very different creature from anything that his father had been - and Krateros did not for a moment believe a word of that nonsense that that fool oracle had filled Alexandros’ head with about being the son of Zeus, Philippos was more than father enough for one man - his mind was a sharper thing again, and much less easy to understand. Krateros had spent enough hours trying to shout sense into that thick skull, and then watching Alexandros go ahead and do just as he pleased in spite of it, to know that. It was a good thing that the lad had always seemed to have the kind of luck the gods only bestowed on madmen and fools, or this whole thing would have come down years ago.
Eumenes, as far as Krateros could tell, felt the same. He’d liked Philippos and understood him, served him competently and well. He seemed to like Alexandros too, though Krateros had heard him remark that the king did have a gift for wearing at a man’s patience sometimes. The man served well for Alexandros too, even if he did have a way of getting above himself. Krateros resented him for that a little, but not so much that it mattered. He was just a bloody secretary after all, when a man got right down to it. Hephaistion, on the other hand, was a good deal more than just a secretary these days, though by rights he should have been no one at all. Krateros found that he resented that rather more.
Leaning still on the rail, he watched as Hephaistion rolled to his stomach and pushed himself to his feet, with a look on his face that told of both laughter and pain. Still striking, that face of his - more than striking if Krateros was telling it true, downright stunning in fact, though the man had to be past thirty now. Gods, they were all of them getting older. Krateros could remember when they had started this thing, and Hephaistion had been just another cavalryman and looking barely old enough to shave. He and the king both - Alexandros would be past thirty too then, if he thought about it. Or near enough. All of them getting older. A good thing they’d convinced Alexandros it was well past time to turn back. He snorted, and spoke to Eumenes without looking at him.
“So, how many times is that, so far?”
“That that horse has put him on the ground? Three, while I’ve been watching.”
“And I’ll wager he’s not so much as raised his voice to it, has he?”
“Of course not.” Eumenes sniffed at that, as if Krateros had suggested something outlandish. “He’ll snap at the clerks when his lists won’t tally, and he has no hesitation at all in snarling at me if he doesn’t like what I say - which is most of the time - but I’ve never heard him shout at a horse. The man has an odd sense of priorities.”
Krateros had always thought Eumenes a stiff little man, with his carefully precise diction and his lips perpetually thinned in disapproval, but he was sharp enough. Hephaistion did have an odd sense of priorities, if it came to that. There were times when Krateros was half sure that he lived and breathed for his precious bloody horses. Well, for his horses, and for Alexandros, to be fair. If someone had told him that Hephaistion was taking one of his horses to wife, that would have surprised him less than this other thing. Hephaistion had always been passionate about his horses. He had never been passionate about women at all.
The general watched as Hephaistion moved across the yard again. Quietly approaching the stallion that had knocked him to the ground, the man seemed to be speaking to it softly, or maybe even singing. Krateros would not have been surprised. The stallion was a young thing, all high head and laid back ears and quivering muscles that spoke of an animal ready to run or fight. Krateros knew a cure for that - a strong rope, and a handful of strong men, and let the animal fight itself to a standstill if it wanted to. Hephaistion, though, had nothing in his hands at all, and he was in there alone. Well, if he thought he could manage an unbroken stallion with only his voice and his hands, at least it made entertaining watching.
“Somebody,” Eumenes said quietly, “should tell him that this is not fitting. The Chiliarch of Alexandros’ empire should not be tumbling in the dust in a stable yard. This is what we have grooms for.” The man managed even to say it smoothly, without sneering. Krateros snorted.
“Hardly matters. Chiliarch … what’s that, when it’s at home?” It was not as if Hephaistion was a general of any standing after all, or had any strong and powerful kin who might influence the tides at court. If Eumenes was a jumped up clerk, then Hephaistion was not very much more, no matter what titles he might have been given. He was useful in his way, competent with what he did, but that was where it ended. Chiliarch. That made Krateros want to spit. What was that, to the likes of him? “More Persian nonsense no matter what name they give it, that’s all that is.”
“Perhaps.” Eumenes slanted a dark eyed glance at the other man, a thoughtful glittering thing. “But it’s Persian nonsense enough to win him a Royal Persian wife. Which is more than the rest of us are getting.”
Well. That was true. The women they would wed were well born, and some even royal kin, but no other was taking a Royal Persian princess. Only the king, and the king’s good friend. Krateros grunted and kicked at the lower rail of the yard, making the wood shake and boom and startling the young stallion into flinging up his head and crabbing sideways. Hephaistion glared at him over his shoulder, then turned his attention back to the horse.
“I could give you a hand with that, you know,” Krateros called out. “Nothing a good horsewhip wouldn’t fix.”
Hephaistion didn’t deign to answer that. He only raised one hand in a vulgar gesture, and set to pushing the stallion into moving again about the yard. Krateros spat in the dust.
“Aye, and you, and your bloody horse too,” he muttered. To Eumenes, he said; “Do you think it’s too late in my career for me to start sleeping with kings?”
The other man lifted an eyebrow. Krateros was impressed with how much scorn he could put in that. Eumenes said, “Too late to get the jump on that one, at any rate. He started early, with that. Besides, he’s prettier than you.”
In spite of himself, Krateros laughed. He ran a hand over his craggy, weather-worn face. Well, maybe Eumenes was not such an old stick, sometimes. “Aye, he is that. Probably prettier than his new wife, for that matter. Though if he treats his woman like he treats his horses, she’ll walk all over him. Too soft sometimes, that one. He won’t last a month.”
Eumenes, who would not have described Hephaistion as soft, only shrugged. “I don’t know how he treats his women. As far as I’ve seen, he doesn’t have any.”
“Never has, unless he’s been stashing them under rocks.” A biting fly was bothering at him, lighting on his bare arms and darting away. Krateros slapped at it. It was warm out here. Hephaistion and the horse both had a sweat up. “Doesn’t seem inclined that way.” That was dry; they both knew, after all, exactly what Hephaistion was inclined to, and women did not come into it.
“It would be a good thing,” Eumenes said, after a pause, “if he would remember his place, and his duty. He has work to do. And I,” he added, with a twist that could have soured honey, “cannot complete my own tasks without the Chiliarch’s say so.” That was more grating than any other thing, that he now had to answer to Hephaistion on matters civil. It was new enough still to bother him; it was not so long ago that he answered to no one but the king himself.
“Oh, he’s always been good at remembering his duty,” Krateros said, to be fair. “But he’s never been able to remember his place to save his life. He’d not be being wed to a Persian princess if he had, now would he?” In the yard, Hephaistion was doing something odd, pushing the horse to run and then turning away. The animal was beginning to turn to him, starting to follow where he led. Krateros could not for the life of him see what the man had done to get that. Then again, Krateros did not much care. It had been better when the horse had been setting him on his arse. “What work is he meant to be doing?”
“He is meant,” Eumenes said heavily, “to be overseeing the organization of this dratted marriage feast.” Another slanted, glittering look accompanied that. It was, Krateros realised, what passed for laughter in this man. He chuckled low and gave a grim smile.
“Ah, well no wonder he’s out here playing silly buggers with that horse instead. He’d not want to be organising his own wedding.” Hephaistion was good at organising things. Probably he was hoping that if he put off organising this particular thing, it would go away. Or that someone else would do it and make a botch of it. Except that Krateros had known Hephaistion for too long to believe that of him. What he’d said to Eumenes was true as well as merely fair; Hephaistion did take his duty seriously. Even the parts of it he did not especially like. “And speaking of this marriage feast, I need to talk to you about the accommodations around here. Getting a bit tight, I’d say.”
“They are indeed, and you’ll have to get in line for that.” Eumenes’ thin lips tightened briefly. “Alexandros is planning to make rather a spectacle of this thing. I’ve more musicians to find lodgings for than I know what to do with.”
Krateros did not like the sound of that. “Persian ones? Why in the name of Zeus’ buttocks would he want them? They sound like cats fucking.”
Eumenes did not flinch at the vulgarity. He only gave the general that sidelong, glittering glance again. Laughter. “Something very like that, yes.” Then the man relented a little, with the tiniest shrug of his narrow shoulders. “Lodge your request with the clerks. I’ll see what can be done.”
Krateros grunted. Too much of that sort of carry on, these days. Too much of having to speak to three different men to get a simple thing done. There had been a time when, if a man wanted a thing, he marched up to someone and asked for it. A trooper asked his officers, officers asked their commanders, commanders spoke to the generals and anyone could speak to the king. Now … Krateros scratched his beard, and tried to think when the last time was that he had spoken to Alexandros alone, without having to snarl his way through a horde of Persian hangers-on first. Things had changed. The king had changed. And soon, he would have his very own horde of Persian hangers-on, in the form of marriage kin he had not asked for in the first place.
The young stallion in the yards had calmed considerably. It was standing at Hephaistion’s shoulder now, nuzzling at him. The man was saying something low and soft to it, huffing breath at it, running an easy hand over the strong neck. So, that was another creature that Hephaistion had won over with his smile and his voice, and damned if Krateros could see how. Well, Krateros had never said that Hephaistion was not good at what he did - only that what he did hardly seemed to warrant the favour he got in return. Like, for example, a Royal Persian wife. If that could be said to be a favour. He wondered at it, out loud. Now it was Eumenes’ turn to snort.
“How far is it a favour?” He glanced at the other man again, but the glitter in his eyes now was not laughter at all. It was something harder, much more assessing. So it should have been, probably. Eumenes had been assessing the currents of courts and politics and power - and recording it all, too - for most of his life. He had seen it all before, or if he hadn’t seen it, he had read of it. Krateros, who was not exactly a novice when it came to the tides of power and influence and the ways in which it might be won, had found in the past that that was another thing he resented about Eumenes. The man always seemed to know too damned much. Eumenes went on. “It is, I think you’ll find, a very great favour, in spite of what Hephaistion may or may not prefer for his bed. Or it could be, if they play it to its conclusion.”
“What does that mean?”
“Had you thought,” Eumenes said, “what it will mean, that Hephaistion will be by marriage brother to the king?” He paused, then added as if Krateros might have forgotten, “Alexandros has no heirs, and his only brother by blood is that halfwit of Philippos’.”
Krateros made a harsh sound that was part laugh and part not. “If you’re thinking about the succession, and certain people being put in positions where they might benefit from hurrying it along, I’d scratch that idea right now. Hephaistion would no more see the king killed than he’d cut off his own balls and wear them for earrings.”
“I wasn’t thinking of anything so blunt. I’ll doubt Hephaistion’s motives sometimes, but not his loyalty. He’s nothing without Alexandros, and he knows it. He’d not want to see the king dead, it would take from him all the influence he has. And he’d never be able to take the throne in any case, he’s not got either the blood or the supporters for it. A regency maybe, if Alexandros ever sires a son to play regent for, but even that I’d doubt. No, I was thinking of something else. Something more far reaching than that. Something more …” Eumenes paused, for effect or simply to find the right word, Krateros didn’t care. Oratory interested him even less than fancy ways of training horses. “More dynastic.”
The general did not like the sound of that. He narrowed his eyes at the smaller man beside him. “What?”
For moment Eumenes did not respond. He looked instead into the yard, his expression thoughtful as Hephaistion did something soft and quiet with the young stallion, that now seemed to be eating out of his hand. Or nearly - it tossed its head up suddenly at the rope halter going over its brow, knocking Hephaistion back a pace. Hephaistion took it with his usual easy grace, not losing either balance or footing. He only steadied himself, soothed the animal, finished what he was doing. The horse whickered what sounded like a question; Hephaistion murmured what sounded like an answer, too far away to make out any words. The biting fly was back, bothering Eumenes this time. He waved it away and spoke low and quiet. “Hephaistion’s not of royal blood, but through this woman, his children will be. You know Alexandros as well as I do, you know how he likes to make the grand gestures. You know too, what those two … well. One of Alexandros’ children, wed to one of his … that’s all it would take to put Hephaistion’s blood on the throne in three lands, Macedon, Persia, Egypt. And this, for a man who is no one much of his own accord, and who can claim no more birthright than his father’s lands and herds. A valley in Macedon’s hills, a score or two of horses. He came from that. But think on this, Krateros … if they take this as far as that, one day, your grandchildren could be calling his, king.”
There was something distasteful about that, something that made Krateros want to spit again. The thought of Hephaistion’s marriage did not seem quite so amusing, now. It seemed, in fact, like a low, looming threat. A future in which Hephaistion’s influence would be passed down in blood, while his own … his own … what? Lands, perhaps wealth - but what else would he leave, besides fireside tales and a old dented shield that would hang on a wall somewhere, until some grandson of his grandson cast it out and the last of his memories with it? And for that grandson of his grandson to take his oath of fealty and look up into cool grey eyes that had lived before in another man’s face, Hephaistion’s eyes in the face of the one who was king, while he himself was dust … Krateros did not like the idea of that. He did not like the idea of that at all.
Not that there was a cursed thing that he could do about it. If it would happen, it would happen - Hephaistion would wed as Alexandros had decreed, sire children as faithfully and as competently as he did every other thing the king asked him to, see those children raised to a station beyond anything their father’s blood or merit should have given them claim to. Not so amusing now. Not so amusing by half.
“He has to get children, first.” It came out grated between his teeth, something solid he could say. Eumenes nodded at it, seeing the other man understand what he had been told.
“He does. But I should think he will manage that. He breeds horses, after all. Even if he has as little experience of women as you think he does, he’ll know how to go about the thing.” Dry, that was. Very dry.
There was a pause, and then; “Do you think,” Krateros said, in a stony, tight voice, “that this is what Alexandros is planning for? Do you really?”
“Does it matter? If the king plans it or not, or if he simply stumbles over it?” It was hard to tell sometimes, with Alexandros. “The result is the same. Royal blood is royal blood, and Hephaistion’s children will have it. You don’t think that Alexandros is giving him the Persian princess by accident, do you?” Eumenes’ tone seemed to suggest that if a man did think that, he would be the worst kind of fool. Krateros was not a fool. He did not think that for a moment.
“Of course,” Eumenes was saying, “there are variables. She may be barren. The children may sicken in infancy. He could take some local ill and die of it. Alexandros may even tire of him, though I think it unlikely.” In fact, he thought the sky would fall before that would happen, but he was a man who considered all options. He gave his narrow shoulders another quick hitch, as if it all hardly mattered to him. In truth it did not - he did not like Hephaistion, but that had little enough to do with the way the world turned. This was merely politics, and power, and himself assessing what might be. As he had always done, and always would. It was how a man stayed afloat. “The gods have many ways of putting paid to the plans of men.”
“Aye,” Krateros agreed slowly, watching the young man in the horse yard with eyes that matched his face; hard and set. “Aye, so they do.” Hephaistion had finished with the young stallion now, was talking with a groom and laughing about some bloody thing. He was all over dust and sweat, and when he moved he limped a little from one of his falls, or maybe a kick in the leg. The stallion, its bright bay coat dark with sweat, was standing calmly, consenting to be scratched, won over into trust by that quiet voice and those cool, steady eyes. Fealty, or dust. The gods were fickle, like that. The gods, and men - both could be vengeful things when it suited them.
Nothing was set in stone. Not yet it wasn’t. Not by a long bloody way.