"You're Hephaestion Amyntoros, aren't you?" I asked the beautiful Macedonian youth sitting next to me.

"Yes, I am," he answered with a quick smile over his shoulder.

He really was gorgeous; in full youthful bloom at twenty one or two with blue eyes as sparkling as a summer sea, hair as dark as midnight and skin so freshly honeyed I wanted to dip my fingers in it.

Yet the arrogance of high-born youth did not trouble to ask why I should know who he was. But there again, the victors did not need to ask the names of those they had defeated.

He reached an elegantly shaped arm to select a couple of hazelnuts from the table before us. As he moved, I caught a glimpse of a large black bruise on his upper arm.

"Alexander's special friend?" I asked, following the direction of his gaze across the hall to his King.

Alexander was talking animatedly with a crowd of all the high-ranking Greek delegates here in Corinth - which did not include me. The young King drew eyes, strength and energy radiating from him in a controlled sense of purpose. He was dangerous, like someone had brought a half-grown lion into the house. You watched him with fascination, but kept your distance.

"Yes," Hephaestion Amyntoros answered, finishing his hazelnut as he looked sideways at me as though I might ask him for some favour from Alexander. The beauty of his face and the ugly black bruise made a strange combination.

I smiled, and saw Amyntoros lift his head in defiance as he saw no reason to be patronised.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" I asked genially.

"No. Should I?" he asked with equanimity as he placed another hazelnut in his mouth.

"No, there is no reason at all that you should," I replied, enjoying myself enormously. He could at least control his annoyance.

He turned to face me squarely, clearing his mouth. "I apologise," he said, "I am forgetting my manners. You will think me an uncouth Macedonian." A beguiling smile lit his face as though we were sharing a joke. "May I ask whom I have the pleasure of addressing?"

Oh, Alexander, no wonder you have been captivated: beauty and charm, and the humour and intelligence to use it. He knew he was manipulating me, knew I knew, and knew I was captivated.

I cleared my throat and sat up straighter, trying to look less like an old man with a pot belly. I wasn't, I reminded myself. That was my father. I was just a lazy son who didn't exercise enough.

I smiled, and I saw an answering twinkle in his eye and a small quirk at the corner of his luscious mouth.

"My name," I said deliberately, "is Olympiodoros son of Diotimos."

"Ah," he said, "your father is the Athenian naval strategos. Do you command one of his ships?"

I felt unaccountably nettled. "I do. I actually am to command an escort for the grain ships to Sicily shortly. There are many pirates in the Italian waters."

"Excellent. And is your father to do anything about these pirates?" He was eager, questing for adventure.

"That depends upon whether the city will agree to pay for it."

"A king does not need the approval of the city to deal with malefactors."

"Ah, but he must surely need the approval of his generals to commit their men."

The quicksilver smile appeared again. "Yes, but a king can make sure his generals are of the same mind as he is. "

"True." Politics was boring and getting us nowhere. Changing the subject, I glanced at his arm and said, "That's a big bruise. How did you get it?"

He looked down at his arm as though he had forgotten all about it, which I didn't believe for a moment: it looked too painful. "Fell off a horse."

"That was a foolish thing to do." I leant towards him. "If," I said, lowering my voice to its most seductive tone and staring deep into his eyes, "you were to come to my house with me, I have some excellent ointment for bruises."

He stared back at me with eyes as round as Athena's owl's. Then he leant towards me and said softly, "What do you want?"

"To bed you."

Amusement flooded his eyes, and the mercurial smile appeared again, this time with a touch of salt. "Not going to happen." He tipped his head to one side, considering. "You can't be more than five years older than I am. What do you really want?"

"To kiss you and seduce you."

A flash of annoyance in his eyes this time at my persistence. "Not going to happen," he repeated. "Don't you want glory and adventure? Don't you want to join Alexander's expedition against the Persians? We will need warships to guard our crossing, to counteract the Persian fleet and stop them cutting us off, to stop them making a counter-invasion into Greece. Don't you want to be part of the greatest adventure of our era?"

"No."

He blinked, uncomprehending in his youthful idealism. An expression came into his face that was a terrifying glimpse of the exhilaration and single-mindedness that came over men in battle. It often looked ugly, but on him, because he was young, handsome and heroic, it looked divinely inspired.

"I don't want to die," I said quickly and softly to disarm him. I was reminded that he had probably been at Chaeronea. I hadn't, nor at Thebes, and he would most certainly have been there at the city's destruction, and in Alexander's campaign's up north, where we all thought the young lions had been killed. They hadn't.

"You have every chance of not dying too," he said eagerly. "Far more men survive war than are killed, otherwise we would not do it. Do you not want your name to be remembered, even if you do die, as the doer of great deeds? Do you not want to be praised for being brave enough to face your fear, and to conquer it?"

I sat back. "I would rather enjoy life."

He looked at me like I was a stone wall.

Before he could begin butting his head against it, I turned my head at movement approaching us. Alexander, perhaps drawn by our heads together was sauntering towards us. From what I had seen of him so far, he walked briskly and decisively straight to the object of his attention, others scurrying to keep up with him. This was more like a prowl. He had shed his entourage, and looked like a cat approaching a favourite mousehole.

I got to my feet hastily. "Alexander," I murmured politely. He was after all a king with an awesome army to back up him.

Besides me, Amyntoros had jumped to his feet, grinning like a schoolboy. "Alexander," he said, "this is Olympiodoros son of Diotimos, the Athenian navel strategos. He was just considering joining his ships to ours for the Persian expedition." He turned to me with a cheeky grin.

"Um, no," I murmured, frightened. "The decision is not mine to make."

Hephaestion clapped me on the arm. "You are so eloquent and persuasive that I am sure you will have no trouble in convincing your father and the city to join us."

I noticed the purr in his voice at 'persuasive' and blinked at him, thrown off balance.

"We would count it a great honour if you were to be our advocate with Athens," Alexander said, regarding me shrewdly from under his brows. I was still nervous of him, uncertain which way he would pounce, but suddenly he broke into a smile like sunlight on a wheat field. "Hephaestion is a good judge of character; he can tell a brave man and a man whose word we can trust. I would have no hesitation in trusting your loyalty if he does. I hope you will join us."

I looked from one to the other of them. Hephaestion was grinning at me like a delighted schoolboy. No idea why: perhaps he was an idiot. But I had the distinct feeling that I had been boxed into a corner. Alexander was smiling at me, and it felt good. I felt like I was basking in sunlight at the top of the acropolis with the whole city looking up at me.

Why not, I thought. Why not avenge Persian atrocities from the past and prevent them ever doing it again? Why not make a name for myself and be remembered among the chosen few? Sicilian pirates were all very well but they were small fry compared to the Persian satraps.

I grinned back at Alexander. "I will do my best to honour your confidence in me, Alexander."

"Excellent," Alexander said, still smiling at me. "Now we just need some Athenian troops. Hephaestion, shall we?"

Olympiodoros son of Diotimos was a real person, so were the corn ships and the pirates. The rest of it is made up.