"Hephaestion, when are you going to stop sulking at me?"

Hephaestion looked up in from where he was seated on the other side of the tent from Alexander's bed, his blue eyes wide and his lips parted in startlement. But no smile came to those beautiful lips. He closed them again, bowed his head and returned to reading the letters in his lap.

"I'm not sulking," he said evenly. "I'm working."

"Yes, you are sulking. You've barely said two words to me in the past five days," Alexander said from where he was propped up on his pillows.

Hephaestion scarcely looked up. "You've been asleep most of the time."

"Well, I'm awake now," Alexander said petulantly.

"You're just bored," Hephaestion said, sorting through his letters. "Read your letter from Porus."

"No." Alexander waggled his fingers at the letter lying on the blanket. "It just full of how beautiful his daughters are, and the words swim in front of my eyes. It makes me sleepy."

"Then go to sleep," Hephaestion said, reaching behind him for a stylus from Alexander's great table. He'd refused to sit in Alexander's gilded chair on the other side of the dark onyx-topped table.

"No. Give me one of the letters you've got."

Hephaestion looked across at him. "I've already told you all the important bits," he said. "Do you really want to know that Agathon has only sent half the grain to Amyntas in Balkh that he was supposed to? Or that Taxiles hasn't sent the timber to the Hydaspes that he promised? I'll deal with it."

Alexander looked at Hephaestion and for a brief moment their eyes met. Then Hephaestion looked down again, his hair hiding his face as he began writing on a wax tablet.

"You look like Aristotle sitting there," Alexander said. "You look like a school teacher."

Hephaestion didn't even look up. "Then you'll be able take your kingdom back from me quite easily, won't you?" he said.

Alexander was so stunned, he forgot to shout at him.

"Who's running my army while you're in here?" he demanded. He knew he sounded petulant and ungrateful, but that was how he felt.

"I am," Hephaestion said, ticking something off on a list.

"How? When you're in here with me all day long?"

"I'm keeping you company. And I do it when you're asleep," Hephaestion said, looking at him briefly.

"No, you're not keeping me company, because you don't talk to me."

"And what precisely are we doing now?" Hephaestion asked, holding his eyes steadily.

Alexander couldn't hold his gaze. He wanted to hit him. He looked away at the mound his feet made under the bedclothes.

"I'm getting up tomorrow," he said.

"Fine. Don't expect me to be there when you fall flat on your face."

"The soldiers need to see me. They need to know I'm nearly well."

"True. Sitting in the sun for a bit will do you good, and them too."

"Since when did you become my physician?"

"Since you became an idiot."

Alexander glared at Hephaestion, who held his eyes without wavering. It took a moment, but Alexander managed not to swear at him. Yelling at Hephaestion was not the way to deal with him. He was just as likely to walk away, and it always made him uncommunicative.

"Hephaestion, I'm sorry," Alexander said, trying to charm down Hephaestion's defences. "I know you're doing the work of three men, and I don't know how I would manage without you. You look worn out. Won't you please just take a break and talk to me? I need you to talk to me." He looked across at Hephaestion with big, appealing, puppy eyes. "I've missed you," he said softly.

A ghost of something passed across Hephaestion's face, and then a stranger's mask replaced it: a beautiful, impenetrable and indestructible mask. "You're just crotchety because your strength is returning and making you restless," he said.

"Please, Hephaestion," Alexander begged. "I want you. I need you. Just please, please, leave those damn letters alone and come and lie beside me on the bed for a while so that I can talk to you."

Anger flitted across Hephaestion's face before he mastered it again. "I'm not your lap-dog, Alexander," he said coldly, standing up. He laid the letters on Alexander's table. "If you want someone to amuse you in bed, I'll call Bagoas."

"Bugger Bagoas!" Alexander yelled, banging his fist down on the bed, his eyes flashing with temper. "Just fucking come here, Hephaestion!"

Alexander stared at Hephaestion, his eyes enormous in a face thinned by pain, anger burning him up. Yet the anger burned down just as quickly as it had flared up, his strength extinguished.

"I'm sorry, Hephaestion. I'm truly sorry," he said, his eyes dimming with tears. "Forgive me, but I'm tired, and in pain, and you're being really, really difficult."

An expression of anguish crossed Hephaestion's face before he caught the hard mask of anger and indifference across his face again. Yet now he looked tired and worn thin too. A small, resigned and angry sigh escaped him. Then he crossed the tent and sat on the empty, far side of the bed, one leg folded beneath him like a boy.

For a brief moment he looked at Alexander, his eyes large, clear and uncertain and Alexander's heart, as always, skipped a beat at Hephaestion's beauty. But then Hephaestion turned away, not having found what he was looking for in Alexander's face. He lay down on his back beside Alexander, folding his hands across his stomach and staring up at the roof of the tent so that he did not have to look at Alexander.

Alexander stared down at his own hands in his lap, pulling at a ragged nail, concentrating on his own breathing until it had steadied. Then, without looking towards Hephaestion, he held out his hand. It was the hand on his injured side and it pulled at his chest wound to lift it. For a moment he held it there, and then Hephaestion's hand slowly rose to clasp it. Alexander lowered their joined hands to rest on the bedclothes between them.

Hephaestion's clasp was firm and steady, and Alexander squeezed his hand briefly in gratitude.

"You have every right to be mad at me," he said quietly. "I was irresponsible and stupid to expose myself to such risk in that Indian city. But I had got myself into a situation where I couldn't see any alternative but to jump down inside the walls, nor to lead the army from the front. I suspect you would have done the same in my place."

"It isn't that, Alexander," Hephaestion said, his voice low and even. "You expose yourself to the risk of death or injury every time you pick up your sword."

"I know. We all do. But I've learnt my lesson. I should not have let things get that far."

"You weren't to know the men would hang back." Hephaestion's voice sounded distant.

"I should have read them better. I should never have led men into battle who weren't committed."

There was silence from Hephaestion.

"I've been driving them too hard," Alexander said.

"Yes."

"They've lost faith," Alexander said, his voice hollow with regret.

"You're not a boy, Alexander, to lead them on dreams alone. You're a king, not just a hero."

Alexander turned his head to meet Hephaestion's eyes questioningly.

"They need to know that you have not lost faith in them, Alexander," Hephaestion said. "That you still believe in their loyalty, that you are not punishing them for refusing to go further east with you."

Alexander held Hephaestion's eyes, tightening his grip on Hephaestion's hand as he raised it onto his thigh, covering Hephaestion's hand with his other hand.

"Would you be a better king to my army than I am, Hephaestion?" he asked softly.

Hephaestion's blue eyes flew open wide, unguarded and innocent. He sat up, his eyes fixed on Alexander. The possessor of eyes that innocent could never be other than honest and true, the soul of integrity.

"Is that what this is about, Hephaestion?" Alexander asked very, very gently.

Real pain and anguish twisted in Hephaestion's eyes. In torment, he could not find his voice for a moment. "You doubt my loyalty?" he asked, his voice hoarse and strained.

"Never. I would give myself to the torturers first."

Alexander held Hephaestion's eyes as firmly as his hand. "But I know you, Hephaestion. You abrogate power to yourself. You work so hard, you do so much, you are the sole reason this army functions so efficiently. Without you, this whole expedition would have foundered long ago. Without intending to, you make yourself indispensable."

Hephaestion's eyes clouded with tears.

"I know you, Hephaestion," Alexander continued relentlessly, even though his heart was tearing in two. "If you lose faith in what you are doing, in why you are doing it, you will walk away and take a different path, and if you do, the whole world will feel your absence. My army, my empire will be torn apart. Have you lost faith in me, Hephaestion? In my ability to be a king?"

Hephaestion stared at Alexander, his eyes burning brightly, his lips moving as he strove to speak, but no words would come. His hand moved like a small live thing against Alexander's palms.

Alexander stared at him, sharing his distress. Hephaestion's honesty would not let him lie, and his loving heart would not let him hurt Alexander with the brutal truth. A small pebble of stone formed in Alexander's heart.

Something hardened in Hephaestion too and his struggles stilled. He stared at Alexander, his eyes clear through his pain. "You win, Alexander," he said, with the glimmer of a smile wandering over his face. "You always win. I will not desert you."

He lay down again on the bed beside Alexander, and Alexander, uncertain, loosened his grip on Hephaestion's hand. It slid out of his hands to lie on the bedclothes.

"I cannot break with you, Alexander," Hephaestion said, his voice thin. "You know it would destroy me to part with you, either in death, in friendship, as a lover, or as a king. But must I follow you blindly? Must I follow you without question?"

His eyes met Alexander's, lancingly bright. Alexander, his lips parted in guilelessness, looked at him, at a loss for a moment how to restore Hephaestion's belief in him.

"I should have questioned your decision to stay in Bactria and Sogdiana for so long," Hephaestion said. "I should have argued more strongly with you about crossing into India, but I wanted to see it too. I should have insisted we weren't strong enough to go further east when we saw how vast India was. I should have made you turn round and go back to Bactria after we defeated Porus. It was enough. But I did not. I did not because I loved you, because I would not deny you your dreams of glory, even though it was folly. I gave you what you wanted and I almost lost you."

Alexander stared at Hephaestion for a long moment, humbled and aghast. "I am a king, Hephaestion," he said in a small voice at last. "Above all, I must believe in myself. I must believe in my own myth of greatness in order to make others believe. Perhaps I have believed too deeply in my own myths." He met Hephaestion's eyes with painful honesty.

Hephaestion's silence did not deny his words.

A wave of tiredness swept over Alexander, defeat at Hephaestion's broken faith in him. "You have set me one more mountain to climb, Hephaestion. Are you never satisfied?" he asked with a broken smile.

Hephaestion's eyes flickered like birds trying to avoid a net. Then they settled on Alexander like eagle's talons. "A king preserves the respect of those who must obey him by respecting them. By listening to their voices, he becomes a great king."

"I know," Alexander said quickly, unable to look at Hephaestion.

Each absorbed in his own thoughts, their gazes rested on nothing in particular except that it was not each other. They were silent for a long moment, entwined by closer ties of love and dependence than either could possibly untangle from their souls.

Alexander pulled at his ragged finger nail. A small drop of bright red blood appeared at the side of his nail, a pin-prick of pain.

"We," Alexander said, his voice uneven, "stood side by side against the doubters and detractors, held each other's backs against those who did not believe we should pursue Bessus, that we should not secure the north-east border beyond the bounds of civilisation. Is it now we two, Hephaestion, face to face against each other at the ends of the world?"

Hephaestion's eyes became like flint as he stared at Alexander. But his voice was gentle as he said, "You have been reading too much poetry, Alexander. But you know that if ever it came to it and we faced each other in battle, you would beat me hands down."

"Not necessarily," Alexander said, trying to lighten his tone. "Your thinking is always unpredictable."

"Yes, but you would expect me to be unpredictable and plan accordingly. That is why you are the great general, Alexander."

"The great general, but not the great king?" Alexander asked quietly. "Hephaestion the king, Alexander the general?"

Hephaestion sat up, anger written plain across his face. "Alexander, what do I have to do to convince you of my loyalty? Do I cut off my right hand? Do I cut out my tongue so that I must not question you further?"

Alexander flinched slightly, almost like a small boy being told that his bedtime hero was a monster. "Do I expect that much from you?" he asked. "Have I become that much of a tyrant?"

"I have supported you in everything you have wished to do," Hephaestion said, twisting himself round on the bed so that he could face Alexander, earnest and animated. "But you have gone further and further away from me. Not just in distance and in love, but in hearing too. You have paid less and less heed to my counsel, or to any one else's. You have told us what we must do, whether it is possible or not. We are mere mortals, Alexander. We have our limits."

"You have proven yourselves heroes all," Alexander said, almost inaudibly.

Hephaestion scrambled off the bed over Alexander and faced him in exasperation. "Alexander, we are not heroes living in a story told to innocent boys. We are men of flesh and blood who bleed and die."

Alexander looked up at Hephaestion, his eyes sharpening as his hands tightened on the bedclothes. "Do you want to sit by the fire like an old man listening to stories, Hephaestion? Or do you want to live those stories? Do you not wish to live those dreams?"

Hephaestion's face changed, uplifted by longing. He threw himself down on his knees by Alexander's bedside, clasping Alexander's hand in both of his. "Of course I wish to live those dreams, Alexander," he said, clutching Alexander's hand to his breast. "But I wish to live them with you, my beloved. Stand still, my swift Achilles, and listen to the praises of your victory. Do not race on beyond the stadium into the darkness of death and the night. Receive your crown and sit in judgement on the races, and someday you will pass the crown on to your son."

Alexander's eyes sparkled with tears as he bent his head towards Hephaestion's dark head. He lifted the hand on his injured side and clumsily touched Hephaestion's cheek. "Oh, my dearest love," he breathed. "You give me a gilded image of myself, the hero of your worship. But even the divine gods are not infallible. They err and stumble. Forgive me."

Hephaestion bowed his head and pressed the fingers of Alexander's right hand devoutly to his lips. Alexander laid his hand a little heavily on Hephaestion's dark head. "You have too much faith in me, Hephaestion my love," he whispered. "What else can I do but fail such an expectation?"

Hephaestion raised his face to Alexander, white with fatigue, his long dark eyelashes damp with tears. Alexander's heart smote him with compassion. A faint smile moved Hephaestion's lips. "No," he said softly. "You would not be my Alexander if you failed me."

He smiled at Alexander and Alexander's heart warmed as he smiled down at Hephaestion and watched Hephaestion's smile deepen in return.

After a moment Hephaestion freed one of his hands and wiped at his damp eyes with the heel of his hand. "I cannot sit here like a love-sick boy," he said with a quick smile, attempting to rise from his knees. "I have work to do."

Alexander clutched at Hephaestion's departing hand, refusing to let it go. He strained upwards as Hephaestion stood by the bed, his arm outstretched towards Alexander. Alexander attempted to draw Hephaestion back to him, his face vulnerable and pained. "Did you truly consider deserting me, Hephaestion?" he asked.

Hephaestion smiled gently at him. "Where would I go, Alexander?" he asked. "Would I ask the Assembly to vote with their feet and follow me back north over the Hindu Kush, instead of south with you? I would not do that," he said, his face softening. "I would not humiliate you, Alexander, and I would not lessen the achievements of the army by turning back now. We should press on south to the Ocean."

"Truly?"

"Yes. Besides," Hephaestion said with a quick smile, "I want to see the Outer Ocean too."

"I'm glad," Alexander said. He loosened his fingers and watched as Hephaestion slowly drew his hand from his grasp and moved away.

Suddenly Hephaestion turned at the foot of the bed, cocking his head at Alexander. He looked wan and tired, almost frail as though he had fought an unceasing battle, yet still he managed a lively smile. "Anyway," he said wickedly, "do you think I would let Craterus have my place at your side?"

"Never in a million years," Alexander said, reclining back in peace onto his pillows. "Get some rest, Hephaestion. The work can wait. I don't want to have to become your physician."

"I will," Hephaestion said, turning to leave. "Rest too, Alexander, and I will join you for dinner."

"No, I'm fed up sleeping," Alexander said. "Send Bagoas to me," he called after Hephaestion. "I need some amusement."

Hephaestion's laughter came back to him. "Yes, O Great King!"