God of War -The Story of Alexander the Great

Demetrios was back, hectoring me to talk about oligarchy.

‘Let him be,’ Kineas said. ‘He is a guest, not a performer.’

I had to smile at the notion of me, the Macedonian monster, as a performer.

We were swiftly drunk again. Graccus and Niceas kissed – something that would never, ever happen in Macedon. Men may move each other, but never in public! And Demetrios picked a fight with Diodorus, and they rolled on the floor – and they were fighting – fighting hard, grappling with intent to do real injury. Diodorus had the better of it, and they rose, embraced, and Diodorus rubbed the back of his head where, apparently, he’d struck it against the base of a kline early in the struggle. Demetrios fell backwards theatrically on to my couch. ‘He’s just better than I am,’ he said, and giggled.

I had to laugh.

‘We’re going to go and get laid,’ Demetrios said. ‘Me and Diodorus. When he’s done chatting up the hetaera. He loves them all – swears that if he’s ever rich, he’s going to buy one.’

Diodorus came and sat with us. ‘Why not? Why have a twelve-year-old virgin just starting her courses when I could have a woman who can discuss Socrates and suck my dick with skill?’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll buy her contract for life and have sex whenever I want!’

We were all eighteen, remember.

Diodorus leaned over. ‘That’s Thaïs. She’s new – but a free woman, not a slave. People say she has a scar – never seems to take the veil off.’ He shook his shoulders. ‘Ooh, I want her.’

‘Excellent figure,’ I admitted. It is hard to hide a woman’s figure under a chiton. This one had strong shoulders, a long back and long legs. And beautiful feet, the only part of her that showed, but a most excellent part.

Diodorus laughed. ‘A man of taste, hidden under the barbarian! Come, let’ s get our spears wet.’

I must have looked at Kineas. He shrugged. ‘I’m a prig. I’m for home. Some people need to remember that tomorrow is a feast day – the cavalry must be on parade. Yes?’

So they left – Diodorus and Demetrios together, later inveterate enemies. Lykeles, who had not been there for di

There were other women circulating, now – four dancers who were, somehow, obviously notavailable (at a Macedonian di

I went out to piss, came back and found the veiled woman on my couch.

Before I could flinch, she laughed. ‘I had nowhere else,’ she said with a chuckle.

I liked the chuckle. She was referring to the fact that the larger of the flute girls was entertaining two guests at the same time, and she, the hetaera, was as far across the room as she could manage. But the chuckle let me know that while she was no prude, she was neither afraid nor really interested. Quite a lot to convey in a chuckle.

‘Are you from Macedon?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. I suddenly felt drunk. ‘Are you really a hetaera?’

It is hard speaking to the blankness of a wool veil. I noticed that it was very fine, and moved slightly with her breath.

She nodded. ‘I am.’

I lay back – a sign of intimacy, Aristotle told us. ‘How do you choose such a road?’ I asked.

‘Women can have ambitions, just as men do,’ she said.

‘To open your legs for strangers? That’s an ambition?’ I said. Nasty words – I remember thinking as soon as they left the fence of my teeth that I should be ashamed.

She turned her head – a hand’s breath away, just as Demetrios had been. But covered by a veil. ‘Any way a woman turns, man, she is forced to open her legs for a stranger.’ She said it without the least heat. But with the utmost conviction. ‘I choose who they are, and see that they reward me.’

‘A husband—’

‘Is a tyrant chosen by others; an owner who pays no price, a client without a fee.’ She turned her head.

‘But marriage?’ I asked. I’d never heard marriageindicted before.

‘Sex from duty is like killing from duty, don’t you think?’ she asked. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t know myself, but I assume that when your prince orders you to kill, you kill, whatever you may feel about it. And when a girl’s husband says “lie down”, why then, she puts on perfume and lies down, or he beats her and does her anyway. Yes? So you would understand better than most.’

I sat up.

‘When I want a man, I can have him, or not. And when I don’t like him, I never have to have him.’ She also sat up.

‘I’m not sure the two are the same,’ I said.

She let down a corner of her veil so that I could see one side of her face. She smiled. ‘You are not the barbarian they made you out to be. I’m not sure the two are the same, either. But philosophy is the land of assertion, is it not? And I will insist that while most men proclaim that killing is bad, few seem to think that sex is bad. A man should be more careful who he kills, and for whom, than a girl who she beds, and for what.’

I had to think that through – her Greek was so pure, so Attic, and she’d just said . . .

I got it, and I rocked the couch laughing. ‘You are a philosopher,’ I said.

‘I like a good time, too. Red wine. A fart joke.’ She laughed. ‘But a girl who can’t talk to philosophers won’t get far in this town.’

People were looking at us. Graccus raised his wine cup in my direction.

‘You are with Prince Alexander?’ she asked.

‘Do you always ask things to which you already know the answer?’ I asked.

‘It’s a good idea for a woman,’ she said. ‘Since men seldom listen to us, and often lie.’

She didn’t sound like a whore. At all. Or a stuck-up Athenian philosopher. Her eyes were beautiful – blue, deep as the sea.

‘I listened to you. And I assert that I kill for my prince of my own will.’ I lay back.

‘Well – I was married at twelve, and it wasn’t bad at all.’ She rolled on an elbow. ‘In fact, my husband and I had a physical attraction I’ve never felt for anyone else.’ She got a tiny furrow between her eyebrows. ‘Why am I telling you this?’

‘How on earth did you go from wife to . . . hetaera?’ I asked.

She shrugged. ‘Things happen,’ she said. ‘Not things I wish to discuss,’ she added, closing the subject. ‘You are easy to talk to – like a farm boy, not an aristocrat.’

‘Perhaps being a foreign barbarian has its advantages,’ I said. I saw a little under half of her face, and if she had a scar, I was the King of Aegypt. She had sharp cheekbones, a lush mouth and a nose – well, smaller and prettier than mine. But not by much.

‘You’re staring at my nose,’ she said.

‘I love your nose,’ I said.

‘It’s huge,’ she said.

‘Superb,’ I said.

‘Large,’ she said, but without coquettishness.

‘You wear the veil to hide it?’ I asked.

‘You are suggesting that I need to wear a veil to hide it?’ she said, and I couldn’t guess whether she was really being sharp with me, or whether I was being mocked.

‘Tell me about Prince Alexander,’ she said, after a pause.

‘He’s better-looking than me, and not very interested in girls.’ I was drunk.

‘I hear he’s not very interested in anyone.’ She had a wicked twinkle in her eye. ‘The party girls and boys say . . . that he doesn’t.’

I shrugged. Even drunk, there are things you don’t say about your prince. ‘Not something I will discuss,’ I said, since she’d been free enough in shutting me down.