God of War: The Epic Story of Alexander the Great (45 page)

I missed the hypaspitoi the way a father misses his daughter, and I wept the first night I was back with the Hetaeroi.

Polystratus told me I was a fool.

I took my grooms and three Hetaeroi. Diodorus rode with me as if he were my hyperetes, and the other two envoys cowered in the rear. Despite their presence, we made excellent time across Parnassus, and on the second morning we were at the gates of Athens. I requested permission to enter, made sacrifice as a foreign ambassador and was allowed entry. Demosthenes was still in shock – Athens had known for less than a week that the Macedonian army was just two hundred stades away. Suddenly, all the tough talk ended.

I sought permission to lodge with your grandfather, Kineas’s father, and was accepted. I wish I had not. It was my fault that he was exiled later – my enthusiasm for his company, and his for mine, and Kineas’s open pleasure at having me in the city all conspired to seal his fate.

I should have been in the throes of exile and anger myself. I had been ill used by the very king I was striving to serve – had I not?

In truth, I was so sure that I had done the right thing – the good thing – that I was unconcerned by the result. Only young and naive people can act this way, but I was convinced that the king would see it my way in the end.

So I set myself to enjoy Athens. And that began with a visit to Thaïs.

I dressed plainly. It was late afternoon – her public receiving hour. I tipped the slave at her gate, and was escorted to her solar, a big, sunny room with a loom and a set of couches and chairs.

At the sight of her, a thrill ran through me, better than the thrill of a cavalry charge or the racing rush of a galley. How well does Sappho say it? I had not seen her in more than a year, and her immanence was like a breath of incense to a man working in manure.

Her smile was like sunrise. Or noon. Or something nice and poetic. It was beyond artifice, and that was the good part.

She flirted effortlessly with half a dozen of us, and I noticed that most of the men present were quite young – twenty, just free of their ephebe duties – and long-haired boys at that, aristocrats who cared nothing for Athenian virtue.

Diodorus had, indeed, suggested that Thaïs was past her most popular.

I could find no visible flaw – nor, when she sang, could I hear an audible one. But fashions change, and Thaïs represented a freer, more self-confident Athens – not the narrow world Demosthenes wanted – a prude whose sole justification was his hatred of Philip. And now, of Alexander.

But the boys were afraid of me. One made bad jokes at my expense, as if my Greek were so bad that I couldn’t be expected to understand. He was doing it from sheer bravado, and he bored me, and angered Thaïs, who asked him to stop.

‘Perhaps Demosthenes is right,’ the boy said, flipping his hair like a girl. ‘Macedon is a land of effeminate poseurs, and this Ptolemy with the barbarian name hides behind Thaïs.’

I sipped some sweet wine. ‘Dear Thaïs, if I break the little one, will you forgive me?’

She made a face. ‘Yes. But only if I can watch.’

That stung the brat. He sat up. ‘Well – if that’s all the thanks I get for my wit, I’ll go.’

I smiled. ‘Don’t hurry, laddy. We’re going to wrestle first.’

Thaïs clapped her hands.

The boy waved for his cloak. ‘I’ll decline to wrestle with a barbarian, however well connected.’

‘Well,’ I said, still smiling, ‘then I guess I’ll just break your neck.’ I caught him by the shoulders, locked an elbow, put him in a hold and threw him out of a window. The window was open, and it was less than the height of a man above the garden.

The garden was a little thorny.

‘His father is quite important,’ Thaïs said.

‘My master is the King of Macedon,’ I said. The other boys hurried out. As soon as they were gone, I bent down over her kline and kissed her.

And she let me.

It was quite a long kiss, and without meaning to, I had a hand under her chiton, on one lovely breast and then the other.

I could hear the boy in the garden arguing with his friends. But I didn’t care what he decided to do.

My hand drifted over her belly, which was as taut as my own, and stroked her – down and down. My fingers parted her. And then I was inside her.

It all took a deliciously long time. And her slaves must have been remarkably well trained.

And at some point, she was astride me, and she pulled her chiton over her head without unpinning anything, shucking it off as a useless encumbrance. ‘Sex should be naked,’ she said. ‘Like athletics – the participants need to show their bodies.’

I took the hint, although I remember giggling as I tried to wriggle out of my chiton while pinned to the couch.

Am I shocking you?

Let me put it this way. Before that afternoon, I’d never really had sex. She was playful, humorous, lust-filled, languorous, fast, slow, intelligent, as beautiful as Aphrodite, with more cleverness in one hand than all the slave girls I’d ever bedded had in their cunnies. And in between bouts – for sex with Thaïs bore some very real relationship to competitions – she’d talk of things – real things, like love and friendship and war.

I’d like to say we made love six times, but that would be bragging.

‘I’m going to be sore tomorrow,’ she said.

‘I’m sore right now,’ I said. I was looking at my penis, which was as red as a Spartan’s cloak. She laughed. I laughed.

Put a value on that.

‘Come away with me,’ I said. ‘Live with me. Be my hetaera.’

‘On the basis of one afternoon on a couch? You don’t have my bill yet.’ She smiled and kissed my nose.

Now, I hated my nose. People called me ‘Farm Boy’ because of that beak. No one had ever kissed it before.

‘On the basis of the fact that I think of you constantly.’ I licked her lips.

‘You’ve bedded me now – the feeling will pass.’ She smiled. ‘Men really only fancy what they haven’t had.’

I bit her.

She bit me.

We were pretty far down the path when she grabbed my hand – she was strong – as strong as a warrior. ‘That hurts. I’m done, sweet.’

I laughed and kissed her. ‘I suppose I owe you for the week you’ll be out of commission,’ I said.

She shook her head. ‘I’m not a porne,’ she said. ‘You’d be surprised how long it is since I had a man between my hips.’

I licked her lips again. ‘I’m lucky.’

She laughed. ‘Perhaps.’

‘I mean it,’ I added. ‘Come with me.’

‘You don’t know me,’ she said. ‘And people will say the most unkind things.’

I shrugged. ‘I’ll kill them.’ That made her laugh.

She wouldn’t give me an answer. We drank some wonderful red wine together, and I left to go to a dinner in Alexander’s honour.

I didn’t see her for two days. She refused my invitations and was not at home to anyone.

On the third day, Demosthenes himself agreed to lead the embassy to Alexander. Athens was racing to throw itself at the conqueror’s feet. Demosthenes could never meet my eye. Old Phokion was kind enough to shake my hand and tell me that the exploit of Mount Ossa was as worthy as any feat of arms he’d ever done.

Kineas and I boxed, and he gave me a black eye. Your pater had the fastest hands I’ve ever failed to see, and that’s no lie.

I was done. So I sent Thaïs a note, declaring that I was still sore and that I still wanted her to come with me. I thought a touch of humour might have an effect.

She sent me a bill for ten talents of gold. A year’s income from all of my estates.

I sent her all ten talents, and a bill for ridding her of a troublesome guest – one Athenian drachma, payable in kisses.

The next day, I packed my gear. I had no intention of riding with Demosthenes. I detested him. He made my skin crawl.

Mid-morning, while I said my goodbyes to Kineas, his father’s steward summoned the old man, who went out for a hundred heartbeats and came back.

‘Ptolemy, there is a
person
at my gate. She says she will wait for you. Do you wish me to admit her?’

Kineas looked puzzled. I
was
puzzled.

‘Not . . . Thaïs?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ Eumeles said. ‘A person of some . . . distinction.’ He spoke with evident distaste.

‘Ah!’ I ran down the stairs and out into the courtyard, across the yard and out through the gate.

There were twenty mules in the alley, and a dozen slaves, and Thaïs, robed like a matron and wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat.

‘Last chance to change your mind,’ she said.

I shrugged. ‘At ten talents an . . . encounter, I must confess that ours may be a chaste relationship.’

She nodded. ‘Platonic, perhaps?’

I laughed. Kineas laughed when I told it to him. He snorted wine over his chiton. She was that funny.

When I left Athens, I had the one thing Athens had that I wanted.

TWELVE

W
hen 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.’