God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

TWELVE

When I rode out through the gates of Athens – the magnificent Panathenaic gates – I hadn’t given Alexander a thought in three days. And such was my delight in Thaïs that I didn’t really think much about him during the idyll over Parnassus to his camp outside Thebes.

But the camp was a buzzing hive, and the first drone to land near me was Hephaestion, who had the inner guards when I rode into camp. I saluted him, and he rode over.

He looked at Thaïs, looked away, and back, and away.

I smiled.

‘Who’s that?’ he asked. Not at his most subtle.

‘The hetaera Thaïs, the jewel of Athens.’ I smiled. ‘She has agreed, of her goodness, to spend a little time with me.’’

‘She is beautiful!’ Hephaestion’s admiration was quite genuine, and he bowed deeply in the saddle. ‘Despoina, that you condescend to grace our rude camp is like having Aphrodite herself—’

‘Hush,’ Thaïs said, with a smile, and raised a finger to Hephaestion’s lips. ‘No hubris, and no calls on the Cyprian that I challenge her beauty – for I do not.’

Hephaestion was smitten on the spot. Who expects a courtesan to be well spoken and witty? Well, Macedonians don’t. Athenians do. There’s a lot to be said, there.

‘The king wants you,’ he said to me. ‘He’s waited for you for three days.’ Hephaestion made a face. ‘He wondered if you were coming back.’

I sighed. ‘I wonder who put that thought in his ear?’

Hephaestion frowned. ‘Not me. We need you, even if you are a fool. There’s only you, me and Cleitus who will stand up to him, now. But if I were you,’ and Hephaestion’s eyes flickered over Thaïs, ‘I’d take her. He needs to see something beautiful. He’s angry. And it’s not really about you – but it could become you in a heartbeat.’

Well – for Hephaestion, this was almost like friendship.

‘Thanks,’ I said. I still counted my fingers after I shook his hand. ‘I’ll change—’

‘Go straight away,’ Hephaestion said.

Uh-oh.

So I rode to the royal pavilion with Thaïs at my side, and helped her down from her horse. She didn’t make a fuss about her appearance or her fatigue – a miracle – but strode in behind me.

Black Cleitus was at the tent door. He clasped my hand and beamed at Thaïs.

‘By the gods,’ he said. ‘Alexander! It’s Ptolemy, with a goddess.’

Alexander called, ‘Come.’

I went in first. Alexander was alone except for two slaves, both armourer’s men, who were fitting him for a helmet. Theban smiths make good work, but these men were Athenians – I could see their samples. The best armourers in the world.

Alexander turned to me. ‘A goddess, Ptolemy?’

It seemed a promising start. ‘Lord, the hetaera Thaïs has agreed to spend some time with me.’

Alexander smiled. ‘She is here? The jewel of Athens came to our camp?’

‘And will live here, if you give her leave,’ I said.

Alexander nodded. ‘Well done, Ptolemy. A cunning stroke, worthy of Odysseus. I gather you were crowned with success?’

‘A deputation is behind me – ten leading men, headed by Demosthenes himself. Kineas’s father, Eumeles, is the actual speaker.’ I held out a scroll tube of ivory. ‘Athens agrees to have you as hegemon and agrees to provide five hundred cavalry for the crusade in Asia.’

‘Well done!’ Alexander shook his head. ‘You do well at anything to which you turn your hand. The hypaspists – four weeks, and you made them like gods.’

‘I had help,’ I said, but his praise was like strong wine.

‘The last time we spoke, you reminded me that, at the root of it, I am king under the sufferance of my subjects – at least, of my elite subjects.’ He was not smiling now.

I rolled my eyes. ‘You needed reminding.’

Cleitus coughed.

Alexander shook his head. ‘You are just not getting this, Ptolemy. I suspect you don’t get it because you are, in fact, so blessedly loyal to me – but a man who warns the king that he can be dethroned by force – is that the man to command the king’s inner guard – to win their absolute devotion?’

Sometimes, I am slow. In this case, I had to laugh. ‘So,’ I said. ‘That’s what this is about. You were afraid—’

‘I am afraid of nothing,’ Alexander said. He was quite calm. ‘But some of my friends are afraid.’

Our eyes met.

‘Attalus is dead,’ Alexander said. ‘Parmenio had him killed. It happened two days ago.’ The king shrugged. ‘I suspect that you were, and are, right. He had to die. Much as I hate him, I could have used him. As I will use Lord Amyntas and Lord Parmenio.’ His eyes never left mine – like a lover’s. ‘But I saw Cleitus’s look when I ordered his death – and Hephaestion’s.’ He nodded slowly, eyes still locked on mine. ‘Listen, Ptolemy. The longer I am king, the less I will understand of what happens outside this tent. The more power I’ll have, the less information to help me use it. Think of Pater – Philip – in those last days. He didn’t even know that Attalus had had Pausanias raped. No one told him until you did.’

I nodded.

‘But he didn’t love you for telling him, and I’ll never love you for it, either. Kings don’t say “I’m sorry”, and they don’t say “You are right”. Eh?’

Eyes still locked.

‘Find a way to do it,’ he said, very quietly. ‘Find a way to keep me from . . . ignorance.’

I smiled.

‘But find a way to do it without making it a war between us. I am king.’ Alexander’s eyes bored into mine, and I realised that I was doing it – challenging him – refusing to break the eye contact.

Quite deliberately, I looked away. Then back, like a flirting girl.

He smiled. ‘Now I want you to bring your goddess for dinner. But first, I want you to swear me an oath that you do not now, nor will ever, seek the throne of Macedon.’

It was right there, the possibility of my indignation boiling over. Fuck him. How dare he? I’d nearly died for him – twice.

But he was the king, and he was not responsible for the shit people poured into his ears. I knelt. ‘I swear by Zeus, lord of the gods, lord of slaves and kings, Zeus of the eagle, Zeus of the thunderbolt, may I be burned to invisible ash and no man ever remember my name if I have ever sought the throne of Macedon, or ever do so in future.’

Alexander put his hand on my shoulder and crushed it, his grip was so hard. He left a bruise.

‘Thank you,’ he said very quietly. ‘I cannot give you the hypaspists. What do you want?’

I had Thaïs. ‘I’ll go back to my squadron of Hetaeroi,’ I said.

Alexander nodded. ‘Excellent. Perhaps you and Laodon would put in some time improving the grooms, as well. Now – the goddess?’

Cleitus, who could hear every word, held the flap, and Thaïs came in. She was wearing a wool chiton, very plain; a long riding cloak of transparent wool, so light it flowed like silk, and a hat woven of bleached straw, very fine and also white. She was the only woman I knew who owned a pair of Boeotian boots made to her size – open-toed, for riding. She still had her long whip in her hand. Upon entering, she unpinned her hat and made a deep obeisance. ‘My lord,’ she said. ‘You will not remember me. We met at a party.’

‘Ah – I would be unlikely ever to forget you, Despoina.’ He inclined his head gravely. ‘Your presence here is a triumph for Macedon – we have taken the finest thing Athens ever had.’

‘But my lord,’ she said, ‘Athens never had me – I am an Athenian, and I am here of my own free will. I am not an object – I am here to be a subject.’

Alexander looked at me. ‘I’ve seldom been corrected so gently. Perhaps you might teach Ptolemy your arts?’

‘Well,’ she said, and her eyelashes fluttered, ‘I could try, but women of my sort seldom train a potential rival, and Lord Ptolemy is already a very good companion.’

Alexander, who never, ever spoke of sex, blushed. And then laughed, because her joke was so subtle – the Greek word for courtesan was hetaera, but it was merely the feminine form of Hetaeroi – our word for the king’s bodyguard – his companions. Damn it – that’s funny, lad! She was comparing courtesans and bodyguards . .

Never mind. You’re too young. The king laughed his arse off, and that didn’t happen often.

‘Would we shock the world if we had the Lady Thaïs to dinner tonight?’ Alexander asked Hephaestion.

He looked at me as if to say I told you so. ‘No ambassadors. Possibly the last night it’s just the army. So I’d say yes.’

It was quite a dinner. Thebes rose behind us like the backdrop for an Athenian tragedy. Because of Thaïs, the talk was light and witty and educated. Bad as we Macedonian barbarians might be, we had all been educated by Aristotle, and even Perdiccas and Cassander could manage to sound vaguely like men of culture.

Thaïs helped them. She had a way of capping a quote before a man could finish it – as if she understood that he was going to say something erudite, and she loved to help him finish. Cleitus, for example, struggled to participate. Thaïs always liked Cleitus – almost always – and that first night, as he stuttered through a quote from the Odyssey, she smiled.

‘With you quoting Odysseus’s part, I suppose I must respond with Penelope’s,’ she said.

His relief was obvious – he got the credit for a good quote and she’d done all the work.

It’s not the best example, just the best one I remember.

She smiled around the company. ‘But I don’t want to stay at home like Penelope. If you, my lords, are going to Troy, I want to go!’

Alexander smiled and shook his head. ‘The queen of the Amazons fought for Asia,’ he said.

‘Who needs to be bound by the classics?’ she said. ‘And what of Atlante? Eh? Or Athena? Not that I compare myself to the grey-eyed, but still.’

Hephaestion smiled. ‘What would you do, in a camp of soldiers, lady?’

Thaïs smiled, and Hephaestion blushed. She never said a word. He looked away, and Alexander blushed.

‘Laundry,’ Thaïs said.

Her timing was beautiful, and the whole tent burst into an approving roar. I’d seen her at work in a symposium in Athens, and so had Alexander, but none of the others had, and they had no idea how powerful was her command of song and speech. She gave them a taste – sang a few popular love songs to her own accompaniment on the kithara – but she intended to remain a guest and not a performer, and she declined to play more.

Alexander came to her couch after she had sung, and sat on the end. ‘You spoke of our crusade in Asia,’ he said.

‘Ptolemy speaks of little else,’ she allowed. ‘And men in Athens – my friends, like Diodorus and Kineas and their faction. Men say that you will throw down the Great King, and make all Asia subject.’

He breathed in sharply, like a woman at the climax of love. ‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘But I love to hear it coming from you.’

She smiled. ‘When your crusade marches – will you let me accompany you?’

Alexander laughed. ‘After one evening, lady, I think we would beg you to accompany us. Ask me another boon – anything you like. Your presence will enhance every dull evening on campaign. You make my officers better men just by being here. Perhaps this is what Helen brought.’’

‘Anything?’ Thaïs asked, and her voice was suddenly . . . odd.

Alexander caught it – but the need to be Achilles and Agamemnon rolled into one always took over from common sense. ‘Anything.’

She nodded. ‘May Zeus hear you, Lord King. May we all some day be where I might have my boon. For now, I ask nothing.’

Alexander loved a moment of drama. ‘I swear it by Zeus, by Herakles and by the River Styx.’

Cleitus sat up on his couch. ‘I heard the shears of Moira – that oath went to Olympus.’

What I noticed was that Alexander did not swear by his father, Philip. A month ago, he had.

That night, I lay with Thaïs in my own tent. She had her own, but she wanted to play, as she called it, and we made love – slowly – under my cloak. She was quiet and careful.

And in the morning, her head was on my shoulder when I awoke. The smile that came to my face stayed all day.

Even when, about midday, when Polystratus brought me sausage and leeks where I was drilling the grooms, he said, ‘People need to sleep.’

I tried to pretend I didn’t understand.

He just shook his head. ‘If I bring a girl and fuck her all night, will you laugh it off?’

I could have told him to go and sleep somewhere else. But that was not the way between master and man, if you wanted loyalty kept. I understood, and he understood.

Alexander didn’t really understand, and that worried me, but I had sworn to defend him, and I realised that afternoon that more than anything, I would have to defend him from himself.

In fact, the next day, when Alexander dispatched heralds all over Greece to summon the cities to a meeting of the mighty League of Corinth, Philip’s tool for governing Greece, I rode away from camp alone. Thaïs wanted to explore, and she’d begun to collect her own household – a military household. She meant to come with us. She approached it intelligently, and paid Polystratus cash to coach her in her hiring, which won him over in two different ways.

I rode to Plataea. Above Plataea, to the place where Kineas’s family had an altar – high on the summit, a day’s journey to climb. A day’s journey for a man who could run thirty stades.

I climbed alone, except for Ochrid, and I left him with the horses. I went up to the top, where you can see the whole rim of the world. And there I caught a deer and killed it, my own sacrifice to Artemis and to Zeus, and I offered my own oath to protect the king.

Before I was done speaking, thunder rumbled and an eagle, borne on some rapid updraught, shot up from lower on the mountain into the sky on my right, the best of omens and a clear sign of the High God’s approval.

I came down the mountain, elated, and like many men who are elated, I suddenly wanted to talk. And I missed my way, somehow, so that instead of coming down by our horses on the northern slopes, I came down the western slopes and found myself above the ancient tomb of the Hero of the Trojan War. They say Leitus went with the Athenians, and came back after many fights and died in his bed, at peace with the gods. And that he never did anything worth recording – he was not an outstanding fighter, or a brilliant runner – except that, on that day we all know in the Iliad when Achilles sulked in his tent and Hector drove the Greeks to red ruin by the ships, Leitus rallied a dozen average men – average for the Trojan War, of course – and formed a tight little wall of shields, and their locked shields kept Hector at bay for the crucial time it took to rescue Odysseus, who had taken a wound.

Veterans go to that shrine. Leitus is the hero of every warrior who stands his ground and hopes to go home again – not the ones who seek joy and death in battle, but the sane ones who seek to show courage and then live to plough their fields and their wives. His precinct is always well kept, and there are always ten or fifteen men there at the tomb – an old Tholos beehive, high above the road over the mountain to Athens. I had gone there one afternoon with Kineas, and now I stumbled on it by accident.

An old man was sitting on the steps of the little cabin, and he had a dozen boys and adolescents at his feet, sitting in the dust and the late summer leaves. He was very fit, that old man, with neck muscles like whipcord. He was teaching them, of course.

‘What is your duty to the city, boys?’ he asked.

They all looked at me, as boys do when they want to avoid work. But I kept my face blank, and the teacher gave me a friendly nod – man to man, so to speak – and the boys guessed that I wasn’t going to stop the lesson.

The eldest stood. ‘To protect the walls. To stand our ground in battles.’

The teacher frowned, but nodded. ‘There is more to life than war, though.’

‘To defend our freedoms. To attend every Assembly ready to vote on every issue on the agenda set by our elders,’ said another boy in the sing-song voice of one who has learned by rote.

‘How is democracy like war?’ the teacher asked.

‘In war we use spears, and in democracy we fight with words and ideas,’ the boys chorused.

‘And who is the winner? The loudest?’ he asked.

‘The last standing!’ one boy called out. And they all laughed, even the teacher.

But one boy shook his head. ‘Teacher, what if the city is wrong?’

The teacher raised an eyebrow. ‘Tell me more, sprout.’

‘What if the free man finds himself . . . disagreeing – with the city? What if the city orders a wrong action? Say a man goes away to fight for Alexander, and comes back to find that a tyrant has taken his city, or a madness has come over the Assembly, and they give outrageous commands?’

I laughed to hear a fifteen-year-old suggest that a man might go from Plataea to fight for Alexander. Although, of course, it was about to happen, and I knew it.

The teacher nodded. ‘It is the duty of every man who votes in the Assembly to accept the will of other men when he is outvoted,’ he said. ‘To behave in any other way is to be a bad sport, a poor loser. A cheat.’ He looked at them. ‘But despite that, there can come a time when a city, or a tyrant, or a king leaves the path of good actions. Faction can make this happen, or personal enmity, or a curse, or lust for power.’ He looked off into the distance. ‘And then a man must ask himself where his duty lies. For war is an ugly mistress, and civil war is the worst hag of the lot. But to allow yourself to be made a slave – is not to be born, is it? So there can come a moment when the freeman must accept the consequence that his state, his city, his king, has failed him.’ The old man shrugged.

The boy was amazed that he had participated in something so profound. But he was still curious. ‘But . . . what should he do?’

The old man smiled a bitter smile. ‘He should kiss his wife and child, order his burial shroud and declare himself dead. And then he should gather men of like mind, and march. Not expecting to live, but prepared to die to prove his point. Because such rebellion must never be for personal gain, but for the good of the city.’

The boys were silent. I said, ‘You sound like Aristotle, sometimes.’

The old man smiled. ‘Never heard of him.’

‘A philosopher,’ I said.

‘Ah!’ he said, and shook my hand. ‘I’m no philosopher. I was a phylarch under old Phokion, and now I teach war to the boys.’ He looked at me. ‘You don’t look like a philosopher yourself, young sir. Cavalry officer, I’d be guessing.’

‘Under Alexander,’ I said.

He grinned. ‘I fought Philip a few times.’ He laughed. ‘Outmarched his arse a few times, too!’ He looked at the boys, and shooed them away. ‘Home to the fields, lads,’ he said.

He took my arm and we walked to the edge of the clearing. ‘Being Plataean was just a status in Athens, you know. Thebes razed our city to the ground. But Philip saved us from exile, and now we’re trying to raise a generation that sees Plataea as their home – not the south slope of the Acropolis!’ He shook his head. Picked up an amphora of wine. ‘You’ve killed a man in combat?’ he asked. Except it was not really a question.

‘One or two,’ I said. I mistook his tone.

‘It’s a serious thing, taking a life,’ he said. ‘You’re just the age where it’s going to start to occur to you that every man you put down had a life. That they ain’t just meat-bags waiting to help you run up your score. Eh?’

I said nothing. I think that if I’d come on purpose, I’d have been prepared. But I wasn’t prepared. And because I was unprepared, I almost burst into tears. It was a sudden thing.

He put an arm around my shoulder.

‘Didn’t you come here to talk, boy?’ he asked.

‘Got lost,’ I said. ‘I went to the top to pray to Zeus.’ I shrugged.

‘And he sent you here. Come – let’s pour a libation together, and I’ll set you on your road.’ He grinned.

He filled a big Boeotian cup of wine, and we poured it on the rocks at the edge of the tomb.

‘I can afford a sacrifice,’ I said. I felt wonderful – elated. Hard to describe. I felt the way I felt after making love to Thaïs. Clean.

He shook his head and made an odd face. ‘No you can’t,’ he said. ‘Leitus has no sacrifice but men.’ He looked away. ‘And you, praise to Ares, ain’t the one. Sometimes a man comes, and the hero screams for his blood, and the priest puts him down at the door of the tomb.’ He shrugged.

I was impressed. And the Greeks called us barbarians?

‘Now – you must have come from Thebes, eh?’ I notice he spat when he said the name of the city, even though it was just a few stades away.

Plataeans are good haters.

I nodded.

‘So your horse can’t be far. Take the trail here and head that way. Where the trail forks at the top of the ridge – that’s where your horse ought to be, eh?’

I admitted it was.

‘Shall I walk with you?’ he asked.

I shook my head. I felt . . . strange. As if I was in the presence of the hero himself.

‘Take wine with me,’ I said.

He grinned, and filled the cup again. He took a deep draught, and handed me the cup, and I drank – the rich red wine of Plataea, which men call the Blood of Herakles.

‘Drain it,’ he ordered, and I did. I was already feeling odd.

He laughed, and patted my back. ‘Go conquer the world, lad,’ he said, ‘with my blessing. But when the day comes, remember what a freeman’s duty is, and don’t flinch.’

What did he mean?

You’ll see.

My horse was right where he said it would be, with Ochrid standing worried by his head. I mounted, took the reins and rode back to camp, feeling a little drunk and a little foolish. In a village so tiny it was really just four houses and a roadside shrine, I bought a raw amphora of the local wine and carried it on my hips all the way down the mountain and across the Asopus and up the road to Thebes.

I saved it for a few days, until we all moved camp to Corinth. The army went north to the Gates of Fire, because Alexander knew that to camp the army around Corinth would be to offend the delegates. But he didn’t send the army home, either. And he took my squadron of Hetaeroi.

Parmenio sent ‘Uncle’ Amyntas to join us. He was officially welcomed as commander of Asia, and any remaining hopes anyone had of overthrowing Alexander collapsed. The Athenian delegation reached Alexander – without Demosthenes, who proved just as much of a social coward as he was a battlefield coward. He ran off into voluntary exile rather than face the king.

But to my delight, Kineas came out with his father, and he had Gracchus and Lykeles and Niceas with him. Phokion, of course, was one of the delegates, with Kineas’s father.

We had some fine dinners and some ferocious competitions, too – horse-racing and javelin-throwing and a dozen other things. The only one I remember well was fighting Kineas with a wooden sword. We both wrapped our chlamyses about our arms – I don’t even remember how this started – and we were showing off for Thaïs – well, I was – fighting too hard, making showy attacks – and we had a flurry – this is the part I remember – that was nearly perfect – cut and counter, back and forth, for maybe as long as it takes me to say this sentence – ended locked up, each grabbing the other’s sword-wrist, and we laughed and embraced.

And afterwards, I told Kineas about my visit to the Hero’s Tomb. He’d talked of it and we’d meant to visit.

He shook his head.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘There hasn’t been a priest there in fifty years,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Must be a new man, then.’

I served the Blood of Herakles to Alexander the night that the League proclaimed him hegemon as his father had been. The night that we climbed the high altar of the city and swore an oath – every city, every delegation, and I swore for Macedon because Alexander was hegemon of the whole alliance – to make war on Persia until all the cities of the Ionian were free, and then until our armies held Persepolis and Ectabana and the Great King was toppled and all Asia was ours.

It was a mighty oath. We swore to avenge the insults to Athena and Zeus at Athens, to every Greek temple looted by the barbarian, every violated precinct, every outraged family, every city ground under the Persian heel. We swore to liberate every Greek slave.

We swore.

The delegates were divided, and it was old Phokion who pointed this out to me. We were coming down the steps of the Acrocorinth, and he was taking his time – he was seventy, and he moved like a man in his fifties, but he also took his time – and Kineas and I waited for him.

‘Half those men worry that you will fail to war down Persia,’ he said. ‘And half worry that you won’t fail.’ He laughed. ‘I wish I could come.’

Kineas took his hand. ‘Come, master!’

Phokion shook his head. ‘Enough to have seen this night. Too long have Greeks frittered away their birthright. Sparta failed, and Athens failed. Let young Macedon lead us to victory. Let Persia tremble. The young king has the fire.’

We walked down the steps, the sun set over the Gulf and the gods listened.

One more thing happened in Corinth – it’s a well-known story. We’d spent the morning wrangling with Demosthenes over the Athenian supply of naval stores to the alliance – there’s nothing like a petty-minded bureaucrat to bring you down to earth when you’ve been imagining yourself the conqueror of Asia – and Alexander had had enough.

‘I’m going for a walk,’ he announced to Hephaestion. He looked at me. ‘Come.’

The three of us simply rose and left the negotiations.

A small horde of sycophantic Greeks followed us. Really, that’s not fair – your pater was there, and so was Diodorus, and Nearchus, and Alectus, of all people. The army was at the gates, but the hypaspists were outside the city. Just in case.

I assumed from Alectus’s presence that we were going to visit the hypaspitoi.

I was wrong.

We walked down the hill towards the Gulf side of the isthmus, and then out of the city proper into the suburbs. You have to imagine – the captain general of the League of all Greece, wandering down alleys the width of a small bed – dusty alleys, alleys with beggars, thieves and some very ordinary people, who were amused, annoyed or outraged. Or delighted.

Oh, it was spectacular. Especially as the captain general didn’t know where he was going and didn’t want to tell us or ask directions.

We wandered for an hour. I wondered what Demosthenes was doing, and Diodorus began an acerbic commentary on the captain general’s sense of direction. Kineas tried to shut him up, but his sharp voice carried, and Alexander heard him.

He turned. ‘You have something to say, Athenian?’

Diodorus stood his ground. ‘If you are looking for Diogenes the Cynic, you have only to say so. If this is how we’re going to conquer Persia – well, it’ll be good exercise.’ He smiled. ‘Unless this is a test of rival philosophies – you wander about like Aristotle, Diogenes sits in his olive garden without moving?’

Most of the Macedonians didn’t get it. I got it. I laughed.

Hephaestion glared at me.

Alexander shrugged. ‘Take us there,’ he said.

Diodorus looked at me. His face was easy to read. It said, This is not going to end well. ‘Diogenes does not accept visitors,’ he said.

‘And you know because?’ Alexander asked.

‘I tried. The first day we were here.’ Diodorus shrugged.

Alexander smiled. ‘Perhaps you were not Alexander,’ he said.

After Alexander walked on, Diodorus made a face. ‘Perhaps not,’ he said, in a voice calculated to suggest that this pleased him more than the alternative.

But he got us to the philosopher’s house, and we knocked, and a slave answered the door and insisted that his master would not receive anyone, no matter how well born, noble or beautiful.

Alexander pushed past him.

I was content to wait outside, but Alectus pushed right in behind the king. Bodyguard. Of course.

But the rest of the followers took that as an excuse to stay with the king.

I shook my head but followed Diodorus. Kineas stopped at the doorway. ‘My father says I should never enter a house where I’m not invited,’ he said.

I nodded. ‘Good advice.’

He smiled. ‘I’ll wait here, then.’

I went in, against my judgement, to find that we were in a tiny house, far too small to hold twenty well-born men and their slaves and servants. It had a small courtyard, and in the middle of it lay an older man with an average body, a little inclined to paunchiness, naked, sunbathing.

His eyes were closed.

Alexander stood watching him.

Diogenes, if it was he, made no move to speak or welcome us. No rage, no anger, no interest, nothing. He just lay with his eyes closed.

This went on for an incredible length of time. It was excruciating – embarrassing – you have to remember that no one had ever ignored Alexander. For any reason whatsoever.

Time stretched. Men scratched themselves, spoke in increasingly loud whispers, looked around. If you want to get the measure of men, make them be silent for a long time. See what they do.

On and on.

I just watched. Mostly, I was waiting for Alexander to explode.

On and on.

Alexander stood as immobile as the philosopher.

On and on.

Back up the hill, we were building the alliance that would conquer Persia and change the world, and here in this garden, we weren’t worth the shit in our bowels. I knew that the fucking philosopher knew we were here, knew who we were, and honestly, actually, didn’t care.

Good for you, friend. Point made. Let’s go.

Or let’s gut him and leave him to bleed out and see how he feels about that.

I can be a bad man. I had some bad thoughts.

Alexander cleared his throat. I had never seen him so ill at ease.

Diogenes opened one eye. Very sporting of him – almost courteous. The pompous twit.

‘Yes?’ he asked.

‘I am Alexander,’ the king said.

‘Yes,’ Diogenes agreed.

‘I . . . admire you very much. Is there . . . anything – at all – I could do for you?’ Alexander sounded like a boy with a crush on a great warrior. I’d never heard him sound like that – all his near-mythic certainty veiled.

Diogenes closed his eyes. ‘You could get out of my sun. You are shading me.’

Hephaestion spluttered.

Diodorus fled. He didn’t want to roar out his laughter.

I got out in a hurry, because I was tempted to pummel the philosopher with my fists. Just to teach him respect for his betters. Kineas was sitting on the step, with his stick on his shoulder and one fist against his chin.

Diodorus was moving so fast he was almost running.

Kineas gave me an odd grin. ‘I take it that was bad?’ he said.

He got to his feet as Alexander emerged.

‘I could kill him,’ Alectus said, at his shoulder.

I laughed. My eyes met Alectus’s and we shared a moment of barbarism.

Hephaestion was shaking. ‘Useless, pompous bastard. I’d kick him, but it would soil my feet!’

Alexander stopped in mid-stride, pivoted and put a brotherly hand on Hephaestion’s shoulder. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, you are wrong. He behaved exactly as he should. We intruded in his house. We were not invited. And we deserved nothing better. In fact,’ Alexander smiled, ‘if I were not King of Macedon, I would want to be Diogenes. And I would expect kings to stay out of my garden.’

‘You’d keep yourself in better shape,’ Hephaestion said.

Someone laughed.

Alexander looked over at Kineas. ‘What did you think, Athenian?’

Kineas shrugged. ‘I didn’t go in.’

Alexander stopped as if he’d received a blow.

‘Diogenes is very careful about his privacy,’ Kineas said, as if this statement would make it all better.

‘How do you know?’ Hephaestion asked.

Kineas shrugged. And very wisely, said nothing. It was that night that I found out that he and Diodorus had both been students here for a few months – had sat in that garden and listened to the great man.

Saying so would have been foolish, and Kineas was wise.

But Alexander told the story for the rest of his life. Once, by the Ganges, he told the part about Kineas. He looked across the river and said, ‘Perhaps the Athenian was the wisest of all.’ The king looked at the ground. He was trying to impress a passel of Indian philosophers. ‘He didn’t try to enter the man’s house.’

And one of the old Indian men shook his head. ‘There is no single answer to any question,’ he said.

The king liked that.