THE GRAY PALL OF GRIEF

Alexander musing during Hephaistion's funeral. He meets a welcome source of comfort. Reworked from an earlier tale. I don't own them I only like to play with them.

You stand there and your eyes, scorched a bitter red hue and full of smoke and ash, tear. The salt laden rivulets slip down your grime smudged cheeks and fall forgotten to the thirsty sand at your feet. Sand and feet. Sand and feet. Yes, you'd been warned that the sand beneath your feet, feet that have traveled so far and bathed in so much blood would cover only a tiny bit of the earth that you so desperately desire to own. You were warned, but too cocky to heed the omen.

The pyre's gray plume blots out the bright Babylonian sun and stains the sky. A sky painted in a crystalline blue rivaled only by the blue of your lost beloved Hephaistion's eyes. You have grown, as of late, to hate color. It reminds you of life and joy when you can only feel death and despair in your aching chest. The sweet smell of charred cedar clots your scorched lungs. You'd scream at the site before you but no sound will come. The others stand away from you now. They know there are no words left to speak, no words that could roll from their kind tongues that would dull your ravenous grief. There is no balm in the world to soothe your wound, no god to grant your anguished prayers that what the fire now takes from you; should be returned to you. No embrace is tight enough to hold you from flying apart, to keep the bits and pieces of your shattered soul together. No surcease, no release from the agony of this reality.

You see him then, also standing alone. Tall, broad and despite the courage he displays you know that Hephaistion's Celtic mercenary flautist is as broken as you are. To witness his pain only makes you feel yours that much more acutely. The light breeze sifts through his black hair and you steal a glimpse of his handsome face. He turns and catches you staring. Even from a distance you can see that he is weeping. He loved your Hephaistion and loved him well in your selfish absence.

The green of his eyes stands out and your breath catches at the beauty of them. Yes, you know that Hephaistion did indeed love him, though he would never admit it for fear of hurting you. What a silly man your Hephaistion could be at times. You smile just a little at the thought. He knew too well that you could read his heart better than you could sometimes read your own. How had he expected to fool you? Sadly you wonder if he'd ever told the big Celt warrior that he loved him. Hopefully for Xenos' sake he had, because to hear those three small words slip from Hephaistion's lips was to bask in the soft light of a joy unmatched by any other. The stricken man looks away from you and stares again at all that remains of your shared love. All that remains of the man who gave so much and asked for so little, beautiful, gentle Hephaistion.

You flinch when a hand grasps your shoulder. Nearchus, yes it would be Nearchus. One of the few who truly cared for Hephaistion. His eyes are red with grief and smoke and full of genuine compassion. You see the compassion but somehow you fail to actually feel it. Your mind tells you Nearchus shares your pain and wishes to ease it but there seems to be no part of you left that can truly feel whatever comfort the loyal seaman could offer. That bit of you is spiraling into the now periwinkle hued evening sky.

Soon Orion will be riding high and Hephaiston will share the night with the mighty hunter. Yes how you had loved to hunt with him. Loved. Just the two of you alone on a mountain, just the two of you pitted against some wild beast. Just the two of you lying awake on a shared fur staring up at the great hunter as he slowly cart wheeled across the night sky and slipped down behind the horizon…two into one into none.

One. The idea of alone fills you with fear. The two of you had equaled one but now, one equaled alone. Fear is a new and alien emotion for you. But now it owns your soul. How do you go on with half of a soul and half of a heart? A chariot left with just one wheel. Turning in circles of boundless grief. Feel? No, you can no longer feel anything other than the heart wrenching agony of emptiness. You'd decided within moments of feeling his presence ripped from your soul that fear of being alone with yourself would drive you to chase his fleeing spirit down. Nearchus. You read his chaffed lips more then you actually hear his words.

"Come, Alexander it grows late. Enough's enough my friend, come."

You allow him to turn you from the crumbling pyre and lead you back to your rooms. Looking back you see Xenos still standing alone in a desperate vigil. You wonder if he prays as diligently as you do to be allowed to follow in Hephaistion's death steps, to be allowed give in to fear.

Once back in your room you start to rinse the grime from your face but stop. It is all that remains of him and suddenly you loath to part with it. You turn from the basin and head instead for the wine cabinet. Yes, your throat is raw and dry but that rawness too is a part of him; so for a long moment you stand and ponder the dilemma. You could remain this way, smudged and thirsty, his ash a part of you, clogging your throat, lungs and eyes until you finally follow him in death, the ash his last embrace, the ash your last taste of him upon your parched lips, the ash…you fill a cup and drink hastily from it.

You wonder too if that is truly what he'd wish of you now, to just give up. To follow him. How many times had you each sworn to follow along in the wake the other's death? Now you had to decide. Yes, how grand and bold it all seemed at the time. But now, now to choose to go on alone or die. Was it truly a choice?

You remind yourself that fear is the friend of normal men; but this unimaginable loss has proven to you, with inexplicable certainty, that you are in fact only a normal man and all your dreams of divinity have been in vain because you cannot bring Hephaistion back. You cannot have council with the gods you'd so long pretended to sit with as an equal. Their ears have been deaf to your pleas. You know that your fear of being alone will decide for you, will override all other instincts and rend you mute in this decision. You need only to be patient and await your end. So for now you drink and weep slow tears at your mortal weaknesses.

Taking the wine jug from its place you cross the room to where his statue stands silently overlooking a large cedar chest. You sit on the low stool that now stays near the box and slowly open the heavy lid. Ceremony dictated that you burned these possessions with him but you had a maddening desire to keep some part of him with you. It's a ritual now, a compulsive need, that every night you sort through the bits and pieces of all that remains of your beloved companion. Touching and smelling them, caressing them as you would him if he were here. Tonight would be no different. You shudder at the bitter irony of this new rite for in the end, during these last few years of selfish madness, it was a rare night that you spent with Hephaistion and now in death he is with you every night. A sob bursts from your chest as the memory of your last night together plays across your shattered mind. Suddenly, even through the ash and smoke and grime, and gray haze of time you can smell him and taste him, hear him and feel him. You bask in the remembered blueness and gentle, loving warmth of his eyes.

You down the wine and take the helmet out first. The two of you called it the Gaugamela helmet; rendered useless when a Persian unseated and trampled him during that epic battle. You run your finger over the crushed in left side. It saved him but he carried the scar on his cheek and forehead as a reminder of the day. You remember waiting and praying anxiously until they found and brought him back from the field and then three days more for him to awaken. You'd thought that you'd lost him then but the gods returned him to you. Licking your fingers, you smudge them in his blood still caked inside of the battered helm and bring them to your lips, tasting him. You whisper that you love him and place the keepsake aside.

So many years later you still find it hard to believe that the two of you once argued viciously over that scar. Drunk and feeling sorry for himself he'd decided that he'd been rendered ugly by the wound and that was why you'd taken the eunuch Bagoas as a lover. Hephaistion drunk was not a sensible Hephaistion. You'd smile but your lips might crack and bleed. At least the argument had ended up in bed.

His old cuirass is next, retained after a scuffle with hill bandits. Brown with dried blood and stiff with disuse. Wounded through the shoulder and the side he'd nearly bled to death. You had no idea why he'd kept it. The helmet you understood. It had been a gift from you, but this. You raise it up and smell the worn leather and wool. It smells like him, his sweat and blood. Again the gods had been a friend and returned him to you. You set it with the helmet.

There is his copy of the Iliad, a box of letters from his father and a larger box of letters from you. You don't open it. You know what lies within. Your words all stacked in order, twenty years' worth, neatly folded with care and concern and kept safe from the ravages of the road in a beautifully carved mahogany box. You know that if you looked you would find them well-worn from repeated readings. It had surprised you to discover that he read and reread your letters over and over. You envision him in your mind's eye sitting wrapped in his great cloak near his brazier in some far off place reading your words aloud to ease his heart and reap some respite from his loneliness. Yes, Hephaistion was always prone to be lonely. Some, the letters from the times when he was away the longest, showed that he'd rubbed his thumb repeatedly over and over where you'd signed them, signed always the same way. 'With love always your Alexander'. The ink is smudged. Worn from the parchment. You'd observed him doing this with a letter from his father once, and when you saw the marks on your letters it was clear what had caused the wear.

You run your fingers over chest's fine engravings; the box also was a gift from you. He wasn't an easy man to gift with things, as he never seemed to desire very much. Simple items pleased him, boxes and trinkets, bits of jewelry and small baubles. You knew that you could have given him a country but if it kept him from your side he would have been miserable.

A knock on the door and the pages voice calling your name drags you from your recollections. You place the items reverently back into the chest, and start to close the lid; an item catches your eye and you remove it, his flute. Setting it back inside the chest you stand and go to the door.

You open the heavy wooden door and stare at the man before you. The frightened page mumbles an apology but you wave him off and gesture for the visitor to enter. It is Xenos. You are nervous. In all the years since Hephaistion had taken the man as a lover the two of you had rarely uttered a word to one another. Now the big Celt was here. Here in your room on the night of Hephaistion's funeral. He looked tired and his eyes, too, were blood shot with grief and ash. You recover from your surprise and offer him a seat and a cup of cool wine to sooth his mind and throat. He doesn't speak so as always the leader in everything you begin.

"Xenos, what brings you to me on this… this night after so many years of silence?"

You are shocked at both his shyness and his beauty. Shocked that your grief clouded mind can even still register such a concept as beauty. If Hephaistion's eyes had stolen the blue from the sky, then Xenos' had surely stolen the green from the snow and ice fed mountain lakes of Bactria. They were brilliant and even cloaked in such sadness glimmered like finely worked bits of emeralds. It was no wonder Hephaistion had allowed himself the comfort of this man. A warrior yes, you knew; but you could also feel a great gentleness, sadness and love that emanated from the brute of a soldier. You wait quietly for his reply and watch as he wrings his hands in uncharacteristic, nervous discomfort.

You note, with a surge of guilt, that his left hand is missing three fingers. Lost in India to a crocodile that had snatched Hephaistion, by his scabbard, from a raft during a river crossing. You know the tale well. Xenos dove from the raft in a blink of an eye in search of Hephaistion. Finally after a long while under the murky water he'd found and stabbed the Crocodile in the head with his sword. Then pried open the creature's jaw, which had re-gripped Hephaistion by his right calf rending his flesh and crushing his bones. Xenos forced the thing's vile maw open freeing the now half drowned and unconscious, man. Unfortunately the beast's jaw had snapped shut in death and Xenos' nimble flautist's fingers were lost. The soldier dragged Hephaistion back onto the raft with the aid of the others and they managed to pump the water from his soggy lungs and tend to both of the men's wounds. You'd never thanked the man.

"I never thanked you for returning him to me, Xenos." You say and point at the man's mangled hand. You know that the man had never played his flute again.

"No need, my King." He replies and ceases the wringing.

'My King'. Memory of another battle of wills with Hephaistion tickles your mind. Xenos had steadfastly refused to call you his king. According to Hephaistion he was a lone man, his own king, alone in the world after the massacre of his clan in his homeland where the Danube began. And now, 'my king.'

"Alexander, Xenos. There is no longer need, perhaps there never was, for formality between us." You offer gently then listen as his long pent up words spill from his lips like grain from an over filled and plundered sack.

"Alexander, I then am, was to my people, to Hephaistion… Gaoth Tuath, North Wind. I called him, Briosan Gaol, Beloved Breeze."

Beloved. Xenos the North Wind, this Gaoth Tuath called your Hephaistion, Beloved. You flinch; the words stab at your heart, jealously flares but grief wins out and tears threaten to fall yet again.

"I came tonight to offer you my life as such. To offer any aid that I might be able to provide and to tell you, Alexander, that I…I share in your grief as no other in this vast army does. He was a beautiful and gentle man and…if I could have taken his place today upon the pyre and returned him to you once again, as I'd done from the mouth of that wretched Indian beast, I would have gladly done so. He loved you Alexander as no man has ever loved another." His voice broke and slow tears begin to course down his bearded cheeks.

You are at a loss. You want to offer some solace to this man, some words of comfort something to help him move on but you have none. None have worked for you and you feel the fool trying to use them to ease another's grief. Words are but empty vessels sifted out on flighty wings from the lips of man. So few have any real meaning.

"He cried bitterly you know, for most of a night." You say, and he looks up at you confused. "Yes, for the loss of your fingers. He cursed himself. Blamed himself. Grieved for the loss of your songs. He threatened to remove his own fingers in a fit of guilt. I restrained him. He loved to hear you play, Xenos; he loved to play; to play with you. He never, not a single note, ever played for me, Xenos. The music was…only for the two of you. "

With tear filled eyes you watch him as your words sink in. A hint of pride and unbounded love shine in his green gem like eyes. But the sorrow wins out.

"I begged him to play for you, Alexander. He became quite good. He practiced so hard. He loved to…"

"He loved you, Xenos." You interrupt. "You must know and believe me in that."

"He loved only you Alexander, only you." He states sadly shaking his head.

You refill his cup and shiver a little. The night is cool and brazier has burned low. His words expose the depth of Xenos' despair and loss. Had Hephaistion never told him? If he hadn't you knew that the fault was yours for making him feel guilty for his acceptance of a companion. You wince; Hephaistion had never begrudged your selfish lust fueled trysts, or let guilt plague your heart.

You stand, stir the brazier to life then move and kneel before the despairing man. He starts to rise but you hold him down your hands upon his knees. He looks at you confused and shocked. A king is kneeling at his feet in seeming supplication. You find, suddenly, that on some level you too love this man. That somehow, through Hephaistion, you have grown to love this Gaoth Tuath, this gentle foreigner who you know kept your beloved warm and content on so many lonely nights. You now regret not getting to know him before tragedy forced you too. He smells of burnt cedar and succulent Jasmine. Jasmine, Hephaistion often smelled of Jasmine when he returned from abroad and Xenos had accompanied him. Jasmine. As a child you'd loved the blossom's sweet smell but when Hephaistion smelled of the scent it had filled you with shameful jealousy.

"Xenos, gentle Xenos," you begin but your voice is already breaking and the tears are already falling. You are in no condition to be consoling another on this dark day. "Heph…Hephaistion was many things, Xenos but the one thing that he was not, was false. He was true in all that he did and said and felt and trust me kind Xenos, my Hephaistion, your Briosan Gaol 'loved' us. He loved you with all his great heart and if he never told you Xenos then the fault is mine for allowing him to feel guilty about the two of you. He loved you. I know this for fact, Xenos. He loved you."

You can bear up no longer under this new onslaught of staggering grief and long denied admissions. "Yes my good and loyal friend he… he loved us."

You throw your arms around the man's waist and bury your head in his lap, your tears fall shamefully and unchecked again. Would they ever stop? Would the infinitely deep well of your grief ever run dry? By the gods if not for their bitter saltiness your tears could have provisioned the army's water supply through the torturous Geodrosian march. You feel strong arms come around your back and crush the air form your chest. Yes, that is what you've needed but there was no one there to give it. Then a gentle hand smoothes what remains of your sword shorn hair and you feel his softly bearded cheek against yours. Feeling a bit foolish you try to pull away. He allows you to sit up but then, drawn by a common and uncontrollable need, you both reach out simultaneously and drag each other into a fierce embrace. Both of you tremble with your shared grief and together allow an ocean unabashed tears to fall.

You finally calm a bit and again pull away. As much as you need to feel the strength of another you fear opening your heart to the sensation. Sensation hurts, just as colors now blind you with their inherent joy. It leads to a brooding pain that leaches away what life you have left from your ravaged soul. Yet in some dark corner of your mind you want this man, need this man. You want to bond with him despite your grief and your pain. Despite the flood of emotions that such a coupling might bring. He was loved by your beloved. He alone shares the one thing that Hephaistion had given no other. Himself.

Xenos is the last link to all that you've held dear for twenty years of your life. Xenos had been there in the end, touching, tasting, feeling, smelling all that was your Hephaistion and now, despite all sense of decorum, despite your grief; you want, need to share that with this man. Share in all that was Hephaistion. You need to feel his calloused hands, hands that last touched Hephaistion, rake your flesh, to breathe in his scent and to join with him.

You reach out and brush your thumb across his lips. He shudders at your touch. Emboldened you lean in and press your lips to his. He responds to the kiss sucking gently on your lower lip. Surprised you pull away and find yourself bathed in the warmth of his emerald green eyes. You want this. Be it wrong or right. This is the first time in so long that you have felt anything vaguely comforting. You stare at one another for a long moment. Deciding, feeling, remembering…

"Show me how you loved him, Xenos. Share him with me."

You wake in the morning to the subtle smell of cedar and the damp odor of an overnight rain. Jasmine. Yes, jasmine as well. He has you wrapped in his arms. For the briefest moment you are confused. You should not be in any ones arms. You should not ache as you do. He stirs and you look into his green eyes. So it was not some grief born dream. Xenos was indeed in your bed. Surprisingly you feel no guilt only a deep sense of peace. You know that it will not last though. Once you begin the day, force yourself to move through the paces of routine, your heart will again betray you with its hollow, nagging sadness.

He reaches out and with a calloused thumb and wipes a lone tear from your cheek. The look he gives is one of resignation and approval. As if to say it's alright if you cannot go on. It is alright to follow your beloved. That you can rest and walk away from all that you'd built and search out your lost Hephaistion. You wonder if he too will give up but you doubt it. You accept his understanding just as in your heart you've accepted that you will give in eventually to your fear.

You both rise and dress. The moment is awkward. You do not know what to say to this man who has given you so much in just one short night. You offer him a cup of mixed wine and sit down heavily in your chair. He approaches with a small item in his hand. It is carefully wrapped in soft doeskin and bound with a braided leather thong

"I had this made for him, for his birthday. He…I…we lost him before I could give it to him. I would like you, Alexander, to have it in his stead."

You study his weary face and stand. He holds the gift out to you and with a trembling hand you accept it. You force your fingers to be steady as you unwrap the offering. It is a finely wrought flute. You've never seen a finer one. This Xenos not only loved Hephaistion but also his music. You run your fingers over the engravings and finger the holes. Yes, truly a work of art and a gift of love. You falter for a moment as you think of your birthday gift for Hephaistion, also still wrapped and hidden away in the cedar chest. You'd wrestled with yourself over what to get him just as you have every year for twenty years. You'd purchased a fine horse for him, but you knew him well and while the horse would be appreciated it would not appease his strange sense of caring. You move to the chest and open the lid. Xenos walks up behind you and waits expectantly.

You dig carefully through the contents and bring out a square item wrapped in fine silk. You look into Xenos' green eyes and hand it to him. He opens it with shaky hands.

"He was not a man who wanted for much. Simple things pleased him most." You tell him.

Two large multicolored butterflies pinned to an engraved square of ivory. The colors are incredibly beautiful. Iridescent greens, reds and blues, bordered in black. They are flying upwards from the outline of a city.

"I would like for you to have it, Xenos. He always loved butterflies and their soft beauty. They remind me of him in so many ways."

"No, Alexander I…"

You push the gift back to him and attempt a weak smile. He nods and bows his head a bit in thanks. As he exits you feel a sinking in your chest. A sudden loss of warmth. Then the emptiness that has consumed your spirit, for so long now, again licks at the dregs of your fragile sanity. You pour a cup of wine and walk out onto the broad balcony. Thin misty rain clouds shroud the pinking dawn sky and the air is still sweetly pungent with the lingering smell of grief. The breeze is light and you wonder if the sun will ever shine bright enough and warm enough to find its way to your dying heart. Lost you wonder what to do with yourself on this dreary day.

You walk inside, heft the statue of Hephaistion from where it stands, and take him onto the balcony. You retrieve his flute from the chest and sit beside him on a low stool. After a long sip of wine your raise the instrument to your lips and begin to play. A soft stutter of a song. You've not played since you were a child but you play now for Hephaistion and for Xenos and for yourself. Only the small finches that chase about after a bit of bread or a seed can hear you.

Today you will spend remembering lost songs and tales and fleeting whispers of devotion and love; and tomorrow will come soon enough. Then there will be tribes to punish. Yes you could do that, punish. Why should they live when you are dying bit by bit? So you will and the blood rage will warm the ice that encases your heart until the fuel of your empty soul's jealous fury burns away. You will not refill the cask though. When the bowl is finally empty you will just let the flame flicker and die. Then sweet death will reunite you with Hephaistion, only then you will be whole again.