Troy's Wide Seaboard

Part One of Three

Note on origin of this story: I originally intended this story to be a single chapter companion piece to "Elpis," however, the Muses saw fit to extend the plotline into a vague series of interconnected pieces, all focusing on the idea of "home." I have tried to be fair to the personages involved, as I am a classicist who does not always trust ancient sources and a writer who finds many current depictions to be unfair. Therefore, I have tried to capture a certain portrait of homesickness through the eyes of a dynamic Hephaestion. There are two upcoming portions of this story, in which we will see Alexander and Ptolemy, and you will get to see just why I intended it as an extension of "Elpis."

Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who read, and especially those who reviewed, "Elpis." I made a couple mistakes in that one that I did not catch before posting, so I hope I have improved in that area. In any case, it was great to see so many readers for the first fic I have posted here in roughly four years. Thanks again. Enjoy this one.

Part One: Seleucus Joins Hephaestion by the Fire

c. 333 BC

To Hephaestion's eyes, the fire looked oddly subdued. There was no reason: it had been made from wood and debris dried out in tents and wagons, the wet smoked out from low soil fires and stinking dung fires. This clean wood fire was supposed to raise his spirits, to warm him with sweet smelling smoke, but the flames were low and gave off little heat. He sat by it anyway, perhaps out of a sense of pride. If nothing else, it was his fire, and he could stare into the flames as long as he wished.

Steps behind him broke his absent reverie, but he didn't bother to turn until the other lowered himself to sit beside him. "Joy to you, Seleucus," he greeted his visitor, politely.

"And to you," Seleucus responded, then offered him the contents of a bowl in his hands. A glance and a few sniffs could not satisfactorily identify the food, and Hephaestion turned it down. He wasn't hungry anyway.

A few silent moments passed between the two generals before Seleucus sighed audibly. Hephaestion glanced at him: he was looking west again. He was always looking west these days. "What are you thinking?" Hephaestion asked, just to get him to stop looking.

"I am thinking that I should like to smell Macedonian earth," Seleucus said, turning back to Hephaestion. Hephaestion snorted and poked at his fire with the end of a stick. It hissed irritably at him. "Come now, Hephaestion," Seleucus urged him amiably, "You cannot be so hardened as to never wish for home."

Hephaestion looked up briefly before returning his eyes to the fire. "I set my home aside long ago, Seleucus."

"It hasn't been so long. I imagine that there would still be many things the same. The only change might be that Antipater's nose has grown even larger." Seleucus offered, laughing a little.

Hephaestion almost smiled at his lightness, but his mood had turned dark long before Seleucus joined him. He wondered, absently, if Thais was well, and where Alexander was, and if the one of his young pages with a slow mind would be better off training for the infantry. "I was born in Athens," he answered Seleucus, slowly, "That I gave up long ago."

Engaged, Seleucus raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Then you suppose that you'll never see it again?" he questioned, slurping at whatever vile stew he was eating.

Hephaestion's nose crinkled in distaste and he shook his head. "I left it when I was five years old, visited once when I was eight, and haven't seen it since." He paused and turned his face up to the sky, just long enough to pick out a constellation and remember the name. "I will not see it again." He sighed. There had been too many years between him and Athens. His Greek was accented now, and a thick enough one, when he forgot himself, that anyone could have picked out where he came from. He was from Pella, and perhaps, in his heart, always had been.

"That is how I think of Macedon," Seleucus said, interrupting his thoughts. "I suppose that if I live through this campaign, I shall never go back, and even if I do, I will not stay."

"You would not stay?" Hephaestion questioned, "Your family has lived in Macedon since the first people lived in Greece."

Seleucus nodded. "That's true, I think." He smiled, "Do you know that I have two older sisters, and three more who died as babies? I was my parents' last child, and their only boy." Hephaestion smiled and Seleucus shook his head, continuing, "But I won't go back, not even for them, if they still live. I've gone too far now."

"You've gone too far? How is that?" Hephaestion frowned and shifted to face him more fully. "You've gone no farther than anyone else, and most of them would gladly return to Macedon now."

Seleucus sighed. "When I was still training," he said, with a the barest hint of sadness, "I wanted to see the world." He paused for a moment, and when he continued, he sounded slightly hoarse, "But that was foolish of me, for now I fear I've seen too much."

Hephaestion smiled and laughed a little. "You're young yet, Seleucus," he said, resting a comforting hand on his leg, "There's more to see, of Macedon and Greece too."

Seleucus shook his head and laughed bitterly. "You misunderstand me," he said. "It is not the land I have seen too much of, but the people, and their acts." He looked at the ground, and rubbed the toe of his boot into the dirt. "Do you never think of it, Hephaestion? Do you never think of what they will say when we return?"

Hephaestion bit his lip for a moment. "I believe Alexander," he said, with a slight hesitation, "That they will see us as heroes for the glory we bring."

"What glory?" Seleucus asked, making a sound in his throat that Hephaestion couldn't name. It was like laughing, or crying, or both. He spoke quickly, "I've burned villages, and raped women, and killed children. I've stolen land from better men, and I've shamed and damned whole families." He looked at Hephaestion. "I've done nothing less than anyone else, and a little more. I've tortured prisoners and given orders to do the same. I'm not a hero, Hephaestion."

"They will see you as such," Hephaestion responded confidently, deliberately ignoring the heart of Seleucus' speech.

"Perhaps because I had no brothers," Seleucus said, "And it was the woman's perspective that I learned when I was young, that I am ashamed for what I've done. For the shame I've caused."

Hephaestion did not answer for a moment, allowing his mind to wander through memories. He cleared his throat. "You would not return to Macedon because you've raped a woman?"

"Fifteen, counting the ones that truly fought back. A few more, if I count the ones that just stared or just looked away," Seleucus stated dryly, as if he kept a tally written somewhere.

Hephaestion rubbed at the back of his neck. He was growing tired of this conversation, and wary of its direction. "That does not take away from what you have accomplished," he said calmly, diplomatically.

Seleucus sighed. "You are not understanding me, I fear."

Hephaestion chewed the inside of his lip in thought. "Perhaps not," he said finally. The gods knew they all had done those things. All of them killed, and raped, and the gods knew that he, too, had even taken pleasure in torturing certain prisoners. He tasted blood inside of his mouth, and knew exactly where Seleucus' thoughts tended, and knew too, that he did not want to go there. Not yet.

Seleucus shifted restlessly, anxiously. "I know how all of Macedon will see us when we return with wealth and power," Seleucus said, "But how will my mother see me?" Hephaestion gave him a sharp look. "How will she see me if she knows I have raped women and killed them?" Seleucus asked, disregarding Hephaestion. "If anyone had done that to her, I would take vengeance. But no one dares to take vengeance on me, Hephaestion, because I am too powerful. I am beyond them."

"And that makes you ashamed?" Hephaestion asked carefully. He'd always been fond of Seleucus, and valued his quick mind, though he feared the younger general tended to be flighty. He kept his voice delicate and deliberate.

"Shouldn't it?" Seleucus murmured, looking at the ground as if he had just been chastised by the same woman of whose opinion he was so afraid, by whose opinion he was so shamed.

Hephaestion nodded, and considered for a moment, remembering long sunny days at Mieza and trips back to his father's house, where his brothers waited, older than him by years, but waiting to talk with him and teach him nonetheless. He remembered servants chiding him for misbehavior and Ptolemy's family visiting for quiet parties with his parents. "I was," he started, speaking softly, "Named after a temple in the Acropolis at Athens."

"You were named after a temple?" Seleucus questioned, raising a puzzled eyebrow. "That's odd," he said, referring to more than just the name.

Hephaestion smiled a little. "I was named after the temple of Hephaestus," he said, "Because that is where my father went to pray for another son. When I arrived, he thanked the god by naming me after him and his temple, because Hephaestus had favored him and saw fit to pull the strings of fate to give me to them. And it was when I was eight, and my family was visiting Athens, that my father and I were returning from praying at that temple, near dusk, and were walking past all the alleyways I was forbidden to run down. And just once, I happened to hear a strangled cry and turned my head, but my father gripped my arm and pulled me along, telling me it was none of my concern." He paused and looked back to the fire, letting the flames absorb his attention as he gathered the pieces of memory. "We returned back to the house in which we were staying. My father said nothing of the incident and my brothers and I were eventually sent to bed. But I could not sleep, and stayed awake to overhear my father and mother speaking, and heard my father say that we had passed a man raping a girl who was even not old enough to marry." He sighed. "My mother snorted and simply said that she was a fool to have been passing down the alley in the first place."

Seleucus did not comment for a long time, letting the silence stretch out. "What are you saying?" he finally asked.

Hephaestion poked at his fire again, unsure of how to answer now. The memory was brilliant to him, every color and edge clear in his mind. Softly, he said, "You should not be ashamed for what you have done in war, or else none of us will ever go home again." When he closed his eyes, he saw Philotas', staring, unblinking, pleading with him, as if to say Believe me, Hephaestion.

Seleucus stayed silent until he found the words to express his thoughts. He stared into the flickering flames of the little fire. "If that is truly what you mean, then I won't go home again," he echoed, "Even if I am living in my father's house, comfortable in Pella, I will never be home."

Hephaestion kicked some dirt at the fire, suddenly exhausted and angered by its presence. It was too poor a fire, too poor for someone used to building fires, and not even brighter than the memory of fire. He took a deep breath. "Then you see why I don't think I will ever see Macedon again," he said, not looking at Seleucus. Without a sound, they watched the fire die.

I'm back with scars to show,

Back with the streets I know

Will never take me anywhere but here.

The stain in the carpet, this drink in my hand

The strangers whose faces I know

We meet here for our dress rehearsal to say

"I wanted it this way."

["Left and Leaving" –the Weakerthans