Alexander first saw him in the Macedonian court. It was a balmy dusk, the stone and marble cool beneath his fingertips. The adolescent boys, no older than him, respectfully acknowledged their prince as he passed them. They were on their way to their beds, but he was feeling restless, after a full day of conflict between his parents, King Philip and his fourth and principal wife, Olympias of Epirus. Alexander's father, a no-nonesense militaristic man, clashed frequently with Alexander's wild mother, who was known to engage in supernatural rites and orgiastic ceremonies. The unrest was exhausting for the thirteen-year-old prince. Alexander wished his father wouldn't take a new bride with every campaign. But this practice, Philip believed, was what made him diplomatically safe.
Lanike urged him to bed, reminding him that he had spent all day riding, learning to fight and hunt - but he wasn't tired.
Dismissing the fussing of his childhood nurse, he left his bedroom and took off down a side-passage. He passed servants cleaning, the pacing sentry with their clicking armour buckles and long spears, the brightly painted trees and birds on the walls, the bronze statues of Apollo and lions on marble plinths. The slaps of his feet against the pebble mosaic floor echoed in the cavernous space. He drew back the ring handle from the lion's mouth and pulled open the heavy, polished doors. Entering the Hall, he stole into a semi-secluded alcove framed by sheer curtains that fluttered in the breeze.
He sat down on the stone bench and began to play his lyre. He had learned to play under the tutelage of Leonidas and Lysimachus, who also taught him to read and write.
As he was gracefully plucking the strings to a slow, lulling melody, his eyes caught a flickering movement. He thought he saw someone, behind the sheer curtains. Daylight had faded, and the only light came from the flickering glow of the olive oil lamps. He didn't pause his playing. When he next looked up, a boy was lingering, just behind the curtains. The firelight played across the planes and angles of his face, smooth and boyish and young. No older than him. Alexander's hands faltered and he locked eyes with the boy. They were bright in the firelight, and mesmerizingly blue. The boy peered at him with an inscrutable expression, a cross between apprehension and admiration. For several seconds they stared at each other. Then the boy turned on his heel and left before Alexander could call, wait.
***
Frantic neighing, snorting, and stamping of hooves resounded loud and clear throughout the clearing.
Alexander watched as his father and his men tried to tame a black stallion, brought to them by a Thessalonian trader.
Only Alexander could ride the stubborn animal. Unlike the others, he managed to intuit the skittish horse's fear of his own shadow, turn him toward the sun, and thereby tame him.
He rode bareback, starting at a trot and urging his steed into a canter, parading him around the spectators.
Philip purchased the horse for thirteen talents, overcome with pride for his son. He wept, kissing his son's forehead and declaring that Macedonia was too small for the boy's ambitions. The crowd cheered.
The horse had a a branding mark depicting an ox's head on his haunch. "That's quite fitting," Alexander thought fondly to himself, and he resolved to call the stallion Bucephalas, meaning "ox-head."
Amid the uproar, one face stood out to Alexander, peering at him with intrigue. It was the boy. Alexander faltered, threading the reins through his fingers as he returned his gaze. Then, with the nudge of his heels, he rode off to the stables.
***
"You remember Achilles?" Philip shone the torchlight on the cave painting of the legendary hero. It was a rhetorical question.
The young Alexander regarded the depiction on the wall, his eyes gleaming and every cell in his body standing at attention.
"He's my favourite." His boyish face was rapt and eager.
Philip trod on, shining the light on their path.
"Why," he tested his son.
"Because he loved Patroclus and avenged his death," Alexander spoke with reverence.
"And his fate?"
"That he must die young but with great glory."
"Did he have a choice?"
"Oh, yes. To live a long life; there would be no glory..."
Philip nodded sagely.
"You dream of glory, Alexander," he asserted. "Your mother encourages it. there is no glory without suffering. This you are not allowed!"
Alexander trailed his gaze across the ancient murals, his heart swelling in his chest.
"One day I'll be on walls like these."
***
Alexander pointed him out to Lanike one afternoon. He was taking lunch outside in the garden, enjoying his favourite food: frozen milk with honey and fruit. This time the boy was by himself, practising his spear-throwing. His grunts mingled with the bark of watch dogs and humming cicadas.
"Lanike?"
"Yes, my prince."
"Who is that boy?"
The nurse followed Alexander's gaze to where the boy was practicing under the shade of a large olive tree.
"Why, that is Hephaestion, son of Amyntor, a Macedonian nobleman. He is a new page in your father's court."
Alexander regarded him steadily.
***
Alexander never enjoyed playing with the other boys. They all treated him differently, because he was a prince. They spoke with a lofty air about them, as though trying to impress him. Every game and contest was clearly rigged in his favour, and he hated it. He knew he could win without them letting him.
The days passed in a whirl of oils, sun, breeze, stretching, practicing spear thrusts and swimming.
Alexander wished often to speak to the boy, but was too shy.
Once when he was hanging from the bough of the olive tree by the riverbank, pulling himself up and down to build his arm muscles, Alexander felt hands pull him down until he fell into the water. He gasped and sputtered with shock and the splashing water.
Hephaestion, who had climbed out of the water, looked back at him with bright eyes and giggled before fleeing.
The next day, the boys congregated in the gymnasium to practice the art of wrestling.
Alexander marched up to Hephaestion, declaring himself the boy's partner.
His lip curled in open challenge and Hephaestion rose to it. The young combatants instantly locked limbs.
"You don't need much to fight," their trainer instructed, "when you're in the front ranks of a battle, chasing some northern barbarian tribe."
The boys tumbled to the ground, grunting. Sand flew around them.
"Courage won't be in the lining of your stomach, Nearchus; it is in the heart of a man. You don't need to eat everyday or until you're full, Ptolemy. You don't need to lay in bed in the morning when you can have some good bean soup, Cassander, after a forced night's march."
Alexander was losing. He had never lost before.
"Come on, Alexander. Come on. Who'll ever respect you as king? Do you think it's because of your father? The first rule of war is to do what you ask your men to do, no more, no less."
Hephaestion didn't let him win.
Not when they wrestled, or raced horses, or swam. Alexander had never felt such exhilaration in his life.
Alexander liked to watch Hephaestion's nimble hands carve wood. Their bodies brushed together as Hephaestion demonstrated the technique. He carved out a wooden scimitar, which he gave to Alexander. The latter liked to dress Hephaestion up like a sheik and wave his scimitar in the air as they played. Hephaestion would invite Perdiccas and Leonnatus to play with them.
Hephaestion could sit utterly motionless for hours and listen to Alexander play the lyre.
"Everything you do amazes me, Alexander," Hephaestion confessed one day as they were skipping stones. Alexander recalled the way the boy had stared at him as he played that night in the palace, as he tamed and rode Bucephalas, as he did most anything at all.
Hephaestion often stared at him with that intensity.
Once when they were under the olive tree eating figs, Hephaestion looked long at him before speaking.
"Your eyes, they strike me," Hephaestion told Alexander. "Your gaze is liquid." Alexander did not like his eyes. One blue, the other brown, they gave him what others called a dewy, feminine quality. "And the way you hold your head." Hephaestion emulated the poise of Alexander's neck, bending it slightly to the left. "Like this. Your smell is sweet. Your skin..."
No one had ever spoken to Alexander like this. "It flushes so easily," Hephaestion finished.
On another occasion, when they were doing their stretches in preparation
for training with the other boys, Alexander told Hephaestion of his dream to be the next Achilles.
"I will fight with you," Hephaestion said. "'Til the end."
***
"My mother was the most eccentric of my father's brides. But he caught her sleeping with a snake and ever since then he's been afraid of her. He accuses her of being a consort of some higher being, afraid that she might cast a wicked spell on him."
Under a gnarled bows of an aged olive tree, Alexander spoke to Hephaestion of his troubled family.
"Zeus is known to embody snakes," Hephaestion marvelled with awe.
Alexander nodded. "My father was desperate for years to know whether he or Zeus is my true sire - still is." He shook his head. "He sought out the oracle of Delphi to find out."
"What did she tell him?"
"On behalf of Apollo, the priestess told him to make sacrifices to Zeus, and to revere him. She also told him that would lose sight in the eye with which he saw my mother and the snake. This happened in battle not long after the prophecy."
Hephaestion looked at Alexander like he was all of god, moon and sun.