The Persian Boy (Hephaistion)
Hephaistion wasn’t worried, at first. What cause was there to worry? Certainly, the boy was beautiful; he’d have to be, to hold Darius’s attention for so long. But beauty was a dull-edged weapon and the wounds it left never deep; not on Alexander.
He wasn’t worried when the boy slowly worked his way into Alexander’s hemisphere; into his tent, routines, protection. His bed, eventually; even that no cause for concern. Such things passed fast, for Alexander.
But Alexander, the morning after, looked not mournful as usual, but content, almost happy. Hephaistion knew it then: the first, bitter sting of worry.