Hephaestion was sitting alone on a stone bench on a terrace of the King's palace in Gordium, gazing towards the west, to Greece and to home. The sun was setting on the round-topped, worn mountains, turning the plateaus and gullies on them a sandy reddish-gold, so different from the jagged, grey and green mountains of home.
The mountains at home were so much nearer, a handful of rocks tipped into the blue sea by the gods after they had finished making the rest of the world.
Hephaestion felt small and insignificant before these distant, golden mountains, which smiled impassively in the setting sun and made the herds of camel and sheep grazing on the sandy lands between the city and their feet appear as distant dots.
"There you are, Hephaestion. I've been looking everywhere for you," Alexander said as he walked out onto the terrace.
Alexander came nearer and realised instantly that something was amiss for Hephaestion turned no ready smile on him, no smile that lit up his whole face and Alexander's whole heart.
"Hephaestion, what is it?" Alexander asked as he reached Hephaestion's side. He saw his friend's distraught, confused face, which he was trying to hide by not looking up. Alexander placed a comforting hand on Hephaestion's shoulder as Hephaestion tried to get his face under control.
"My mother," Hephaestion said, waving the crumpled letter he was holding, his voice breaking. "My mother writes to ask my permission to remarry."
Alexander stared down at Hephaestion in shock, knowing what a devastating blow this would be for Hephaestion. Hephaestion idolised his mother, revered her as a chaste goddess who had rejected repeated offers of marriage for most of Hephaestion's life in order to remain faithful to the memory of her beloved dead husband. She had sacrificed her life to enshrine Amyntor's memory in her darling son and daughter. Especially in her son, in whom she saw her beloved Amyntor's reincarnation. And now she had cast her son adrift.
Alexander sank down into the bench beside Hephaestion. He could not believe it. He felt as bereft as Hephaestion looked.
"Who is it?" Alexander asked hoarsely. He gazed intently at the side of Hephaestion's beautiful face as his friend gazed off into the distance.
"Someone called Nicanor," Hephaestion said, sounding lost and beyond Alexander's reach. "I do not know him."
"Say no, until you have met the man," Alexander said, urgently. "He can join us here and you can meet him, make sure he's suitable."
"Antipater vouches for him," Hephaestion said almost inaudibly, glancing down at the letter in his hand. "He has known the family for years."
Alexander drew a ragged breath and tried to still his temper, which was rising against the injustice of Hephaestion's distress and his powerlessness to order this marriage out of existence.
"Has she known him long?" he asked as calmly as he could.
"Apparently they met last year on the way home from bidding us farewell. Mother's carriage broke and he helped them." Hephaestion finally raised his face to Alexander, whose heart twisted with compassion at the abandonment in Hephaestion's eyes. "She says Nicanor is a decent, caring man with a large estate and a half-grown family who need a mother."
It took Alexander a moment to find his voice. "She will make a fine mother to them." He touched Hephaestion's cheek gently as Hephaestion looked at him as if he were his last hope.
"How, how can she replace my father with another man, Alexander?" Hephaestion asked with quiet desperation. "My father was a god to her."
Alexander hesitated, searching Hephaestion's eyes and his memories of his own mother, who would never replace Philip with another master. "Women grow lonely," he said at last, trying to be gentle. "The gods made them to need someone to love and care for."
"She writes," Hephaestion said, and his voice caught, "that she is yet young enough to have a few good child-bearing years left. She hopes to present me with a new brother or sister by the time I return home."
Alexander stared at Hephaestion in horror, a tremor running through him as he knew there was more to come.
"She asks that I write to him. To the man who," Hephaestion blinked, unable to say the words that were in his head. But Alexander knew that his Hephaestion did not back down from a challenge. "To the man in whose arms she will be sleeping," Hephaestion finished.
Alexander grabbed Hephaestion and wrapped his arms around him, his hands fisting in Hephaestion's clothing. "I will write to him as well," Alexander said fiercely. "And let him know that he may be very careful of my best wishes." Alexander would personally castrate him if he were not very, very good to Hephaestion's mother.
"She deserves to marry, Alexander," Hephaestion said, fighting free of Alexander's embrace. "She deserves to marry. She was not yet eighteen when I was born, and my father died when I was a year old. She has spent over twenty years without the touch of a man. She deserves not to grow old alone, she deserves to have children around her."
"She has your sister's children," Alexander protested.
"They do not live with her day and night. She must long to hold something warm in her arms, Alexander. And I am not there to give her grandchildren in her house."
The resolve built in Alexander's eyes and Hephaestion saw it. "No," he said, his eyes fiery. "I am not leaving you."
"No, I know," Alexander said, his resolve melting as he wrapped his friend in an warm embrace.
Hephaestion was silent and Alexander could feel the tremors running up his back.
"She thinks I am never coming home, Alexander," Hephaestion said against Alexander's chest. "She thinks she will never see me again."
Alexander tightened his grip and kissed Hephaestion's hair.
"Promise me, Alexander, that if I die without a son, that my father's estate will not go to that man's children. Make sure one of my sister's sons gets it."
Alexander's breath caught in his throat. "I promise," he breathed. He ruffled his friend's hair. "Are you sure you don't want to go home?" he whispered. "Just for a visit?"
"No, no," Hephaestion said, breaking away. "I have to cut the cord, Alexander. I have to unravel the knot my heart is in."
Hephaestion stood up, looking away silently beyond the terrace as he wiped at his eyes. Alexander stood and moved to his side, straining to look into Hephaestion's face.
A strangled laugh died on Hephaestion's lips as he turned to face Alexander. "Look at me, Alexander. I'm like a little boy who thinks his mother doesn't love him any more. I can't go back there, Alexander, and try to be her little boy any more. She needs to build a new life for herself, as I have. As my sister has. It would churlish of me to try to stop her."
"No one doubts you are a man, my dear Hephaestion," Alexander said. "But in your heart of hearts, and always in your mother's, you will be her little boy."
He opened his arms as Hephaestion came into them.
"I don't ever want to go home, Alexander," Hephaestion said into Alexander's hair. "Promise me we'll never have to go home."
"I promise, my love," Alexander said. "To the ends of the earth."
Beyond them, the charioteer of the sun brought the wheels of the fiery chariot down to earth and touched the tops of the mountains, burning them with its touch and sinking the terrace into shadow.