Mary Renault

Hephaistion was worse next day, and had cramps in his belly. Busy as he was, Alexander spent all his spare time with him. Achilles had always bound Patroklos’ wounds.

A smell of sickness hung in the air. He lay on the bed, his face turned up, his mouth fallen open. Someone had closed his eyes. Grasping the body with both fists, lying across it, his mouth pressed to its face, was Alexander. He lifted his head, and gave again that dreadful cry; then buried his head in the dead hair.

After a while Perdikkas, awkward with shame and pity (yes, and already fear), said, “Alexander.”

He looked up. I stepped forward, caring for none of them. He had turned to me before, and knew that I understood. His gaze passed over me, empty. It seemed at that moment that for him I had never been. Lost, gone, possessed.

Suddenly Alexander flung himself to his feet and stared at us, as if he might kill any one of us without caring which. “Where is the doctor?”

Ptolemy looked round to ask the servants, but they had long since fled. He said, “He must have gone to the games.”

I had withdrawn near the door, and w?as aware of something behind me. It was the man himself, slower than I had been to take alarm; just come, just aware of what he saw. Alexander sprang across like a beast of prey, fastened on him, and shook him to and fro. “You murderer! Why did you leave him? Why did you let him eat?”

The man, almost past words, stammered that he had seemed to be out of danger, that he had ordered him chicken broth.

Alexander said, “Hang him. Take him away and hang him. Do it now.”

Two or three men came out to talk apart. Ptolemy said softly, “We must get him out before it starts to stink, or he’ll lose his reason. Maybe for good.”

“By force then?” said Perdikkas. “He won’t come else. It must be all of us; it’s no time to be singled out.”

Next day Alexander planned the funeral. It was to be in Babylon, the new empire’s center, where his memorial would stand forever. When Darius sued for peace after the fall of Tyre, he’d offered as ransom for his mother and wife and children ten thousand talents. On Hephaistion, Alexander was spending twelve.

is a deity himself already; Ammon acknowledged him. Without Hephaistion, he cannot bear even immortality.

He set out within seven days. Any Kossaians he killed, he? said, he would dedicate to Hephaistion, as Achilles had done the Trojans on Patroklos’ pyre.

the white clouds that skimmed across to the distant mountains had edges honed blue, like swords.

As they climbed down through the tall walnut-tree, Hephaistion called to mind the tale of Semele, beloved of Zeus. He had come in a human shape, but that was not enough for her; she had demanded the embrace of his divine epiphany. It had been too much, she had burned to ashes. He would need to prepare himself for the touch of fire.

‘She cried. I made her cry.’

He was still looking quite pale. Words must be found. ‘She cried too when you were born. But it had to be. So has this.’