Title: The Shield of Achilles

Author: Rothalion

E-mail: Unknown

Pairing: Alexander and Hephaistion/Alexander and Bagoas

Rating: PG

Summary: Hmm, the two enjoy an anniversary that gets off to a very bad start after Alexander returns, to his lifelong friend a special gift. Angst, and happy stuff. I noticed that they wore very similar necklaces in the movie. The bedroom/balcony scene in Babylon. So I got to wondering. You can see the leather thong around their necks in many parts of the movie but I think the pendent is only really shown in the Babylon scene. I am probably wrong but…

Fandom: Movie, Stone’s verse. Well it might drift a bit away from there time line wise and relationship wise but…

Disclaimer: I don’t own them history does.

The Shield of Achilles

Hephaistion’s Ride

I’d been riding hard to get back. I’d call it, Babylon, home but to me it really wasn’t. At least not yet. The two nasty wounds I’d gotten three days ago in a skirmish with six hostiles were painful and trying to fester. Fool that I am and wanting to make my ride back to Babylon as rapid as possible, I’d chosen to go alone and that decision had nearly cost me my life. What a silly addled boy I am sometimes, no, most of the time where ‘he’ is concerned, so blinded am I by my love and devotion to him, my friend, my lover, my king, my Alexander. I’d laugh at my situation but I am just too exhausted to waste the energy. Energy that is better spent tending my tired mount and trying to ease the pain and stave off infection in my wounds. Blast this foreign land and all its strange and seemingly useless plants! I hiss as the rank salve I’ve dug from my pack sears the open flesh on my thigh. Gods, the stuff must be rotten or something. What good are Aristotle’s lessons of herbs, flowers and ointments to me now when nothing in this new land is familiar?

Alexander. Five days now I have ridden with one intent - to get back to Babylon, and Alexander, in time to celebrate ‘Our Day’, or at least what was left of it. The one day out of the year that we have set aside for ourselves, the one day we call Ours. The anniversary of our first ‘complete’ physical joining. The anniversary of our defeat of the Sacred Band of Thebes, the one singular event that locked us forever in each others heart and soul. Three days of it had been steady painful riding trying to make up time and I was still the better part of half a day away. With luck I’ll make it back just after the dinner feast if my horse holds up. Finally, my injuries rewrapped and deeming my horse fit to move on, I mounted up and took to the trail at a quick canter. To ease my pain I kept repeating over and over again in my mind memories of the past celebrations Alexander and I had shared on this night, in a slim hope that remembered pleasures would blot out my current pain.

At last, much later than I had desired, I rode through the city gates. After settling my horse with a page I decide to forgo a bath and head straight to Alexander. Only the promise of the succor of his able arms kept my exhaustion at bay. Perhaps being filthy will be an advantage, maybe he’ll offer to bathe me. Maybe I’ll force him to. Why not? Of all the people in this sprawling kingdom of his only I can force him to do anything, I may as well take advantage of it once in a while. Gods, half the men thought that I took advantage of my position anyway. The thought of his strong hands washing the blood and vile grit of this forced march from my skin sends shivers down my spine and I quicken my gimpy steps. I have been away for five months now and my urge to see him is great. I’ve missed him more than I care to admit. The dinner feast is long over, and for the most part the palace is quiet as I pass down the gilded corridors limping in my haste.

I reach his room and dismiss the two guards. They eye me warily. I’m covered in dirt and blood and still wearing my armor and sword. I give them my best ‘Move off now, how dare you question an order from ME?’ look and they relent; slipping quickly down the hall without glancing back.

With an exhausted sigh I knock lightly once and push through the huge intricately carved door. Alexander’s room is dimly lit. The thin curtains blow gently in the light sea breeze. Even from the doorway I can see past the balcony and out across the vast city that is Babylon. I step into the space and seeing a lump on the great bed that was once Darius’ I head that way. He must have fallen asleep waiting for me. I curse my foul luck at leaving late and being attacked. This is our day and I should have taken more care to be sure that I would arrive much sooner. Well, I sigh, what is done is done, I am here now and making up is often quite an interesting experience for us. Silently I reach out and carefully pull back the soft, full blanket that covers him.

I am physically repulsed by what I see and my knees go weak as I clamp my mouth shut with a shaking hand. All the pain of my last few days is intensified and I swallow the bile that has forced its way into my throat. No, NO! No. No. No. Not the boy! Not the eunuch! Not Bagoas! Not Darius’ play-toy! No! Not ‘my’ Alexander. Not on ‘Our night’. No! My hand, despite my love for this man, flies from my mouth to my sword as tears of rage and jealousy and deceit blind me. I ‘could’ kill them both. No, I ‘will’ kill the boy! No both! I want to scream to the gods my rage and hurt but I turn and step a few paces away from the bed. His bed. Our bed. Their bed. Gods be damned Darius’ bed!

Trembling in anger and pain, I come upon a far more vindictive plan. Yes, a great hurt in return for a great hurt. I reach up and pull my pendant over my head and from my neck. My shaking fingers have a difficult time untangling it from my filthy, matted hair and frustration nearly wins out and causes me to just rip it off. Finally it is free. I hold the thing. It seems such a travesty now, a lie in my shaking palm, as scorching tears slip down my cheeks. I scold myself for them. Why cry Hephaistion? Didn’t Philip warn you? Why show weakness at this wound and no others? I’d been hacked and slashed and battered and abused before. No tears should be shed for this, this attack on my…my what? My heart? My trust? My… do I dare say it blind, devout, unconditional love. My soul. No, this marble pendent, a miniature carving of half of the Shield of Achilles, is a gift from the only person I have ever loved, Alexander; and Alexander is the man who wears the other half. It was carved from a piece of the very block of stone used to create the monument that sits upon the mass grave of the Sacred Band. It was given to me, by him, in honor of the bond we swore to one another in both body and soul the night after that victory. A trust that we swore to one another as we lay alone together with our pride, that was deluded by our shared grief at having destroyed such a proud and venerable force. A force we had, since childhood, admired, strove to emulate and empathized with. A symbol given to me a year after that bitter sweet victory, on this very night, in honor of the bond that those one hundred and fifty valiant warriors shared with their lovers and shield bearers. The bond that Alexander and I struggled and fought to replicate between ourselves. The same bond as was shared between Achilles and Patroclus. The two halves fit perfectly together, hewn by the finest artisan he could find. Just as Alexander and I fit perfectly together. Just as Achilles and Patroclus did. Invincible when we are as one, just as Achilles’ shield was. How had I become so blinded? Even Achilles had a weakness that the great shield could not protect. I laugh a silent bitter laugh. Oh, Alexander if only your weakness had been your heel and not your unfettered Macedonian cock.

I return to the bed and watch the steady rise and fall of Bagoas’ breathing. He is dead asleep and if the wine infused air in the room is any indication they are both stone drunk. Carefully, I lift the eunuch’s head, my lips curled in feral disgust at the feel of his hair on my arm, and place the pendent around his lithe neck. I center the small stone on his bird-like excuse of a chest and stand straight again. Happy anniversary my Alexander. Happy anniversary.

Alexander Awakens

I do not know exactly what awoke me just after the sun had begun to slip back down for the day. It was a feeling of dread. Akin to a nightmare that you simply cannot recall in detail yet the fear or tension you had experienced in it lingers behind in some deep, deep well-like part of your being and despite all your efforts to bring the full memory to the top you just can’t seem to reel the bucket up. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and coughed to clear my throat. Beside me Bagoas went on sleeping. The boy’d gotten drunk last night, well we both had, and would probably be of no use to me today. Today? The day was gone. Yesterday was gone. ‘Our Day,’ Hephaistion’s and mine, was gone, and he had not shown up. It was beyond midday, by the sun’s telling, and yet another day would be spent adrift in my loneliness.

I’d been bedding the eunuch for a few months now. Why? I don’t know. I simply desired him. I desired him, and like everything else I desired I took him. He was so different from Hephaistion. Soft where Hephaistion was hard, thin where Hephaistion was thick, gentle where Hephaistion was rough, submissive where Hephaistion was controlling. Just different. He let me dictate our coupling. I was in control of a situation that I had never been in control of before. Odd thing is that I’d not previously realized that I had wanted to control it. Hephaistion just always had. I knew somewhere deep in my heart that my actions would hurt my life long friend and lover. I had nightmares about Oedipus and his fate. While this was different, it still was an act of…of I am not sure what. An act against the nature of things, the nature of what he and I considered a pure relationship, a relationship that for us had been blessed by the gods. Hephaistion was, from a Macedonian stand point, uncharacteristically single-minded in who he chose to bed. Me. My own father’s dalliances with any boy that stood still long enough to be taken had always sickened my friend, despite the respect he’d held for Philip’s leadership as King. I was his and he was mine and that was that, unless birthing an heir was involved. Yes, he would accept, condone and love me through any marriage to beget an heir; but this thing with Bagoas was purely lust and far beyond the parameter set for us by Aristotle in Mieza. A parameter that the two of us had chosen as our guide for life. My bedding of this Persian gift and spoil of Darius’ would help me grow no city state. If anything, were I not cautious, it would destroy the only relationship that I truly cared about. Slay the only being that I have ever loved. So why did I gamble? Am I my father’s son?

Looking over at the sleeping boy I noticed that he was wearing my pendent. Squinting, I stared at it in disbelief. Maybe, unlike Oedipus, I have been cursed to go blind slowly, but yes that is my pendent around his neck. Not even drunk beyond all sanity would I have hung the treasure around his thin Persian neck. It would take an entire herd of Bucephalus’ to tear that pendent from my throat. How had he gotten it then? Like a horny foot-soldier caught buggering a pig I continued to stare at the stone. How? Finally, I rolled from my back and onto my right side to get a better look. As I did, I felt a cold tickle across my chest. Reaching for it I discovered my own pendent still hanging about my throat. With a knowing gasp I lashed out and viciously tore the necklace from Bagoas’ neck, awakening him and cutting his tender skin as the thick leather band gave way. I screamed at him to go and make me a bath. He fled unaware of what had upset me and the sight his naked delicate body sent a rush of unbidden wantonness through me despite my swelling guilt.

Orders for Hephaestion

I awoke stiff and a bit confused. The wound to my thigh was screaming at me for attention and the one to my right side, well, it was beyond troublesome and hard headed though I was, I had to admit I needed a doctor. Sitting up I saw my page standing obediently in the corner of my room. I waved him closer and asked him to make me a bath and fetch a doctor. He scurried off and I was left alone with my thoughts.

It was past midday. Reaching for my throat I sought out my pendent in hopes that my memories of last night were just a fever dream, and that Alexander would come to me at any time. I shuddered when I felt nothing at my throat. So it was true. I’d been forsaken for the neutered pet of a despoiled king. As it was, I amazed myself at being able to have a practical thought. I stood alone and always apart in Alexander’s council, hated by most, but now, I might as well just take up a position outside the council tent with the guards. What a fool he’d made of me.

A bath and tending by a doctor left my body feeling much better. My mind and heart were at war though. I wanted to go. Go back to Pella. Back to what was familiar, back home. Back to Mieza and a time when life was simple. Away. Anywhere away from him and his ambition and selfishness. Away from his companions. I felt like the greatest fool of all time. Beguiled and belittled and betrayed. So I sat in my room hungry yet too ill at heart to eat, tired yet too antsy to sleep and furious yet too cowed by being so easily set aside to confront the cause of my pain. In essence I’d say I was numb. Frozen in a state of inaction. That all changed when a guard brought “Orders from the King”. I was to meet my King after the final trumpet call in the garden just beyond his rooms. Should I choose not to go I was to be taken under arms by his personal guard. The unfortunate footman given the task of delivering the message was uncomfortable and the ten armed and ready royal guardsman who stood behind him did not ease his mind. Although these ten men knew that I would die to protect Alexander they hated me for my position in his heart. Each of them desired to hold the key to the king’s heart. The key that only I, well until last night, held. So they stood gloating at my blunt and demeaning summoning by our lord. I assured them that I would go and made ready to leave.

Confrontation and Reconciliation

Of course he kept me waiting. The guards hadn’t stayed behind so I was left to amble about the lush garden alone. The night was balmy and the air was fresh and damp. A light rain had fallen not long ago. Just enough to wet the plants and draw out the scent of the earth. I’d actually grown to love this place, Darius’ private garden. Well Alexander’s now, and he was slowly turning it into a replica of Mieza. The flowers, although unknown to me, were lush and fragrant. The colors as alive and vibrant as my heart was dead and dulled. I particularly liked a certain bush that boasted a large white blossom and an incredibly delicious and sensuous smell. Alexander knew that I admired the plant and had on past occasions had filled his bed with the petals prior to our lovemaking. Sweet though the flower’s scent was I doubted that it could heal my wounded heart tonight.

I reached out and took a blossom gently between my fingers and as I leaned forward to smell it I felt a cautious hand upon my back. Squeezing my right shoulder and slowly turning me around. Alexander. I swallowed back my anger when I saw the tears that streamed down his cheeks. Why do I continue to allow him to toy with my heart? In a voice wrought with pain he spoke.

“Phaestion, come with me. Walk with me.”

He took a light hold of my elbow and began to lead me down a path.

As it has always been, I follow him without question. The path is green and alive with flowers and smells, the rain laden trees and plants drip cool droplets on my face and head. Tears I figure. Tears for a love gone as sour as the rankest wine. Tears for a friendship now fraught with anger and hurt, cleaved by the very ambition that built it. I flinch slightly as I feel his strong fingers intertwine with mine. I try to pull away angered and disgusted by his touch but he clamps my hand even tighter and continues through the torch lit garden. I realize that I have never seen this part of the garden, the path is new. Finally he stops and turns to me, sadness etched across his face. He gestures, with a nod of his head, at a small opening in the foliage, and turning a bit sideways he ducks through the damp branches. With a cautious look behind me I repeat his action and step into a secluded terrace overlooking the sea.

As I stand in awe of this beautiful place, Alexander crosses to a table and pours two cups of wine. The terrace is fitted with a couch and a low bed covered in silks and pillows and furs. The bed is framed by my favorite blossoming tree. The torches proffer just the right amount of light so that the sky and all the stars are not obscured by them. Alexander returns and hands me a cup. For the first time I notice that he is not in the gaudy Persian garb that he’d come to love and often asked me to don as well. The cups too are of Macedonian make. He reaches out to give me the cup and I see that his hand is shaking. My bitterness breaks free and I finally speak.

“You tremble, my King.” I begin, looking downw ardasIspeakinmockdeferencetohistitle.“Whatcould the King, of all of this and more, possibly have to fear from a lone and unarmed loyal servant such as myself? Tell me, great King. Tell me, my lord.” I take the cup and step backward with a half bow. I know my Alexander, and I am fully aware of how my words have wounded him. This man has been many things to me in our short lifetime but he has never been, when we are alone or even in public my King or my lord. It is that distinction that has defined our relationship and set me apart from the others.

“Hephaiston, don’t. Please. You…” He stops and I sip from my cup watching the play of emotions on his face over the golden rim. “Phaestion…”

“I have a name my lord, Hephaiston, General Hephaiston Amytor. I would appreciate it if would use it, my Lord. Or does my King mean to strip that title from me along with my heart as well? Maybe…” I tilt my head left again mocking him. “Maybe, he will take me as a plaything; like his father before him had. Take, and of course discard after a night’s cruel pleasure without a thought.” I tried to sound flippant but my defiling by Philip, so long held a secret from Alexander, negated my attempt. It was my intention to hurt him, cut him to the core and I knew the knowledge of the brutal act of his father would do just that, despite the fact that it had occurred before I’d even met him. “Well, my king? How would you have me please you? Does the son enjoy the same treats as the father? Shall I…” I shrugged my shoulders in feigned thought, “let’s say…dance or how about have myself castrated?” I curse my anger, as I watch the hurt and understanding streak across his beautiful face. The shock and confusion he is feeling at this new information, at his anger toward a man long dead and beyond the revenge of even him for the slight against his beloved. The face I adore is marred with shame and uncertainty. So a lovely face. Some find him coarse but I have always loved to gaze upon the special brilliance that is his.

“Phai, Phai please,” and then he calls me by the dearest name that he holds for me. “My Patroclus, please…”

I hit him. I hit him hard and without restraint. He staggers back but keeps his feet, blood spurting from his broken nose. The great general in him should have warned against such a foolish slight. To underestimate the enemies wrath. Maybe he just can’t see me as an enemy. I move forward, still threatening and he retreats another step. The shock and hurt cloud his gray eyes. Tears again fall freely down his cheeks.

“Al-ex-ander!” I scream at him. Some distant part of my mind scolding me for disrupting the serenity of this beautiful terrace with such a vicious screech. An odd vision of my hate wilting the white blossoms that I so love screams across my awareness. “Alexander! Do-not-patronize me; you selfish bastard! Do not…just don’t!” I am angry and hurt beyond words. While I can speak my way into hostile cities and bring them under Alexander’s rule, or barter enemy generals into surrender in the heat of battle with mere words and tact, I am for all the fierceness that I possess unable to scream in anger at anyone and make it seem threatening. The furious words simply don’t roll from my tongue with any brunt behind them. To yell now at this man, the man who I have loved since youth, to scream at him and make my anger and hate and sadness known…I just can’t do it. Defeated I utter, “Xander, please, please don’t” I beseech him, a bit quieter now. My exhaustion and physical pain overwhelming me. “Alexander, I…” My cup slips through my numb fingers as I begin to cry and Ifalltomyknees.Isitpossibleto stay so blindly furious with the person who is the other half of your soul? “Have you, have you brought him here?” I can only manage a whisper in my one last attempt to sting him. Gods above I am hurting. My wounds are screaming and my heart is breaking. I need sleep. It has been days now since I have truly slept. I need him. Despite my anger and hurt, I need him. He drops to his knees in front of me.

My head is bowed forward and my hair obscures my face. Alexander reaches out and pushes the light brown mess back behind my ears and wipes away my tears with battle roughened thumbs. My anger all but swallowed in my weariness, loneliness and need. I lean to my right and press my face into his warm palm. He brushes his right hand back and through my hair with a familiarity born from years of providing such tender comfort. I sigh at his touch. Alexander inches closer, until we are nearly touching and places his forehead against mine. I can feel his breath and I can sense his warmth.

“I love you General Hephaiston Amytor. I love you and I can only beg for your forgiveness. No, my beautiful General, I have not brought him here. This place is Ours, and never will he enter this place or more importantly this place.” He took my hand in his and pressed it to his heart. “Never, my beloved General Hephaiston, never will anyone other than you be allowed entry into here.” I can feel the drumming of his heart beneath my palm as he presses it even harder against his chest. “Now then my lord Hephaistion, would allow me to speak freely and call you as I choose?”

I could not help but smile a little at his ploy. Defeated again by his love and his brilliance I nod my consent. I was, after all, like a man alone and cold in a blizzard. I’d be a fool to refuse his golden warmth. Rocking back on his haunches he reached into his robe.

“I think that this is a part of you.” I stared at my half of the pendant draped across his still shaking palm. Yes indeed it did but… “Patroclus, my Patroclus. My Hephaiston, my Phaistion, my Phai…my love, my soul, my life’s breath. Phaistion by all that is true and good in this world, by all that the gods and fate have and will set upon us, by all and everything that is me…you, you are my other half, my shield, my sword, my love. You Hephaiston are the air I breathe and the blood that flows in my veins. This ‘is’ yours, and if you still cannot find it in your heart to return to me, promise to hold it dear and always remember we ‘are’ but one soul.” He reached out and placed the pendent for a second time over my head. As he pulled away he kissed my trembling lips. “Happy anniversary my love, happy anniversary.”

No more really needs to be said. Alexander loved me that night. Loved me with abandon, gentleness, apology and understanding. He tended my wounds and my spirit and pieced together my fractured heart. He plied me, with tenderness and broke me with passion. He swore to never touch the eunuch again, though I didn’t truly believe him. He read to me from our favorite passages of the Iliad. We were again as one being. Achilles and Patroclus, or any two of the sadly decimated Sacred Band. We stayed two weeks in our little corner of Alexander’s great kingdom. Only servants were allowed entry. It was bliss and sweetness and love. A return to our youth. A great and needed respite that we would never again share. That week on our secret terrace, born out of the seeds of anger and deceit, was the finest anniversary that we would ever share.