A LONG WAY HOME

Richard May

I walked among the Persian dead, stepping carefully. They were smaller on the ground than when facing me, mouths and eyes screaming, spears and swords in hand. I looked for someone I might have known, peering into brown faces becoming browner still in death. When I gazed across the former battlefield, the scene was as if an army had gone to sleep, not died.

“What then, priest? Are you giving blessings to the enemy?”

Aristedes’s hand was on my shoulder. Together, we watched the dead, remembering our survival. We had fought back to back yesterday and saved each other’s lives several times.

“No blessings,” I replied, thinking but not saying that Persians and Ionians are not likely to bless one another. In any case, these dead were nonbelievers, at least in Greek gods; my blessing would do them no good.

Aristedes kept his hand upon my shoulder. “Will you bless me, priest?” I gave him a kiss, which is what he wanted. He reached under my battle tunic and squeezed my ass, as one pats a dog one owns. “Shall we continue walking?” he asked and dropped his hand. I looked at him in surprise. He was not much given to walks or reverie. He waggled his eyebrows comically to make me laugh. “There may be some treasures missed. Ah!” he yelled and bent quickly to one of the small prone figures. “A ring. Gold, I’ll wager.” He bit it. “Yes, gold. Would you like it?” He always thought I should have presents for my sleeping with him. I hadn’t yet convinced him I already had the only present necessary.

“No, you keep it.”

He threw an arm around my smaller shoulders. Thracians are huge, also hairy and tattooed, nothing like us more compact, more refined Ionians. In some ways we Greeks of the eastern shore are more like Persians. Our blood has undeniably mixed with theirs during so many decades of defeat. We have been won and lost, won and lost. Now Alexander has come, and we are Greeks again.

Aristedes and I entered our tent. “Let us bathe,” I suggested.

“Let us not,” he replied, guiding me onto the bed. Aristedes was always ready for sex but especially after battle. He had plunged his sword into so many soldiers and now he wanted to plunge a different weapon into me. He removed my tunic and ran his fingers across my chest.

“You have a beautiful chest, priest.” He pinched a nipple and pulled the other, making me gasp. “Lie down,” he said, in a voice already hoarse with sex, and followed me onto the bed, pushing my legs back and entering me quickly. While his fat cock stabbed me repeatedly, I listened to his deep grunts and thought of home. His huge, stinking body disgusted me, but he was a friend of our commander. His access to Alexander was the gift I wanted.

I massaged his back and ass as he liked and moaned a little to make him think I liked his fucking. He came quickly with grunts and roars. It was just as well. I could hear someone clearing his throat outside our tent. I tried to stand.

“Now you, beautiful.” He pulled me back down, taking my cock in one rough hand and manipulating my chest with another. Before long, I was truly moaning as quietly as I could, writhing beneath him. I spurted into his hand, trying not to shout. “That’s better,” he said in a self-satisfied coo.

The voice outside cleared itself more loudly. The messenger could tell we were done. He became brave enough to speak.

“My lords, King Alexander requires your presence for council.”

“Tell his majesty we will be there immediately,” I called to him through our thin canvas walls. I heard his footsteps hurry off. Aristedes and I washed quickly and rushed into cleaner clothes. We checked the state of each other’s hair and headed toward the meeting.

Our lord and god incarnate greeted us. “Ah, the Ephesians and Thracians are here at last. Don’t tell us why you dallied; we can guess.” He teased us while we found our seats, me with the other Ionians and Aristedes among his blue-tinctured Thracians.

Alexander thanked us for his victory and asked how it went with our men, how many killed, how many wounded. The reports were good. We had lost relatively few, and they were already buried in this strange land. I had said words over as many as I could. Soldiers seemed better comforted by a soldier-priest than the temple kind. I had wanted to be the temple kind, but it was my bad luck to be born a prince.

We discussed our next move or, rather, Alexander spoke and we listened.

“The Persians are routed, but they will reassemble. Thousands were killed, but there are tens of thousands more. Reports say they are moving here.” Alexander stabbed at a name on the map. “We will confront them again there. Another victory, and Persia will be ours.” I liked Alexander. He always said ours, not mine.

I knew my Persian geography. “Sochi,” I said aloud.

“Yes, Sochi,” Alexander confirmed. I made my face impassive, but he saw something in it still.

“Speak, Ephesus.”

“It is a narrow way, my lord.”

“It is the closest way.” His expression forbade any further discussion. If his Macedonians did not object, why should the rest of us?

We received our individual orders and a fine dinner of lamb stewed in cumin, cilantro and caraway, with rice steamed in saffron and eggplant broiled in basil and pistachios, all served on gold plates taken from some previously conquered town. From north to south and west to east, gluttony decreased and table manners improved. The Macedonians, Illyrians and Thra-cians crammed meat and bread into their mouths as fast as they could. They were sick of fish. Aristedes joined them in their rush, even though he had eaten better at my table. I tried not to be disgusted by him.

After dinner, we said our good nights and went to see about our men. Neither Ionians nor Attic Greeks would be happy to hear we would be on the march again so soon.

When I came into their campfires, my Ephesians were drinking red Ramian wine and parading silk caftans taken from deserted Persian camps. Their commanders called them to attention and I gave them the news. There were groans and grumblings, but I fired their minds with martial speech and allusions to even greater booty on the road ahead. I know what motivates men.

I sat and drank with them awhile, sure that Aristedes would be doing the same with his Thracians. But at a relatively early hour I got to my unsteady feet and told them all to go to bed. Of course, they laughed good-naturedly at me and ignored my words. I wobbled my way to our tent. How it became a mutual dwelling I remembered clearly. After Ephesus was liberated, Aristedes had appeared and all thoughts of my wife and children had momentarily vanished with the look in his eyes and the touch of his hands. The next morning, when he told me of his connection to Alexander, I began to make my plans. I would be more than a noble nobody in the dust of Alexander’s column.

At our tent, when I opened the entrance curtain, he was already there and naked. He was as drunk or drunker than I, but still demanded I undress and lie beside him. Yes, he is a little rough and, yes, uncouth, but I never expected a philosopher. I lay down as he demanded and his thick, hairy arms and thicker, hairier body enveloped me. His cock was hard and urgent. With few preliminaries—barely a kiss—he entered me, ready to fuck. He could come several times a day, sometimes several times in succession.

I played with my chest and jerked my cock, Aristedes holding himself upright above me, watching me writhe. He began to move again inside me, slowly at first—at least for him—then more aggressively. His thick cock sliding in and out of me felt a little less abhorrent. I closed my eyes with simulated delight. Each time I opened them, Aristedes was smiling down at me, his cock pneumatic in my ass.

We came in a cacophony of his groans and my moaning, my seed melding us from two into one. He pulled out of me, gave me a kiss and rolled onto his side, an arm and hand supporting his woolly head.

“Sing for me, priest.”

His favorite songs were about love and birds and gentle longings. I had learned them all. He needed songs sometimes, when his brain ran on and his heart pounded, especially in the middle of the night when the nightmares came. Then, it was my arms that surrounded him and my body that comforted his.

The next day, we roused ourselves and our men, broke camp and began a new day’s march. Aristedes’s Thracians marched out of order with us Ephesians near the rear of the column, at my bedmate’s request and Alexander’s acquiescence. Aristedes had been an exiled prince at Philip’s court in Macedonia and learned words and fighting from the same teachers as Alexander. He helped his friend defeat his Thracian uncle.

Scouts said the Persians were not amassing ahead after all; they were behind us. The Greek army turned to meet them at Issus, a town of no importance on a stream barely qualified to be called a river. Aristedes and I grew excited. This would be our chance. Ionians and Thracians were now the head of Alexander’s army. We would defeat the Persians and I might kill one in particular. My blood raced and my mind whirled. Darius, where was he?

Aristedes and I drove our men hard into the dust now raised by churning masses, stabbing at every small body wearing pants. Persians fell like rain, a red flow that stained the trampled ground around us and settled the dust.

Aristedes and I stood back to back, although my head came only to his shoulders and his ass nestled above mine. I could feel sweat coursing down my back and didn’t know whether it was mine or his. We slashed and cut, hacked and tore at Persians lunging at us from all sides. More than once I had to use a foot to pry my weapon out of a man. My arm was stronger pushing the sword in than pulling it out. Once I caught Aristedes looking over his shoulder at me, laughing at my predicament.

Bodies carpeted the ground around us. When the Persians broke and ran, we chased after them across this carpet, adding more bone and blood to the weave. At some point I stopped chasing after the cowards and looked for Aristedes. He had found a toy and was bringing him to me. The terror in the young man’s eyes did not affect me. His fathers and grandfathers had enslaved mine. He would have killed me—or Aristedes—today if he could have.

“Pretty, isn’t he?” Aristedes asked, pulling down the boy’s trousers. He was unusually handsome in form and face, deeply tanned and dark of eye and hair.

“Yes,” I agreed, not sure he seemed wealthy enough to hold for ransom.

Aristedes ripped the Persian’s tunic off. “Let us both have him here.” He looked eager.

It was something some men did on the battlefield, taking ass as well as gold, but I never had. Aristedes had, I supposed. His passions had certainly risen high; I could see the evidence protruding from his tunic.

“No,” I said. “We have work to do. Let us see to our men.”

“No!” Aristedes screamed, bringing me to a halt a step away. “I will have this man or he will die!”

I turned and looked into the Persian’s eyes. “Let him die then.” With those words from me, Aristedes slit the young man’s throat and he joined his brothers at our feet. Aristedes stepped across his back to me.

“Let you and I fuck here then,” he said defiantly, grabbing my hand and dragging me after him.

“Not here,” I told him, but he ignored me, looking for a more private spot. I could see the state he was in and searched with him. I could deny him the Persian, but not myself. There was an outcropping nearby. I led him there and removed my tunic once we were inside the rocks.

“Thank you!” he exclaimed, pulling off his own thin garment.

Being in the open seemed to bring out the lover in him and the animal in me. Aristedes half kneeled, one thick thigh remaining parallel to the ground, and took me into his mouth, pushing me into him with large heavily calloused hands on my ass. He rubbed my body as he sucked, down my legs and up my stomach, across my chest and ass, snorting occasionally when he gagged.

“You are almost hairless, like a boy,” he said, taking a breath, then eased me back inside him. His mouth was tight and wet, like my wife’s sweet pleasure hole. Though it felt good, I am not an exhibitionist so I hurried him to his feet and took his cock into my mouth, which I knew he wanted. I sucked diligently until his breath was short and quick. He yanked me up then and turned my back to him. I leaned my arms against a boulder while he forced his cock inside me. It seemed larger out of doors. I felt filled, forgetting where I ended and he began. He reached under me for my nipples and twisted, pinched and yanked them while he fucked, his groin pounding hurriedly against my ass, his balls slapping me with each thrust. I tried not to enjoy it, concentrating instead on the battlefield below. The Persian dead spread from our rocks to the river and beyond.

“Make him come,” a voice yelled behind and above us. I couldn’t tell whether it was Attic or Ionian. I tried to pull away, but Aristedes would not be stopped. He was like a mad bull: having mounted his cow, he was locked in place. One hand took my cock and jerked it rapidly in time to his own rocking motion inside my ass. Like a cow I almost mooed with pleasure and, on hearing sounds from me, he pumped and pulled harder until I came, shouting, whitish globs thick in his hand. With a bellow, he shot his own seed into my ass. The man watching applauded.

“Well done, Thrace and Ephesus. Well done. Now, get dressed. We have a world to win.”

“Alexander,” Aristedes smirked, not at all ashamed.

“Give me my tunic,” I muttered to him, my face red with embarrassment. I avoided looking up until I was dressed. When I looked, there was no one to see.

The Persians ran so quickly from Issus and defeat that they left most of their belongings. I urged that we follow up the rout and make all Persia Greek, but Alexander ignored my advice. We went on to Tyre, Syria and Gaza, fighting our way south rather than east. Alexander was welcomed in Egypt. The battles brought victories and welcome riches. We sojourned at Memphis. All thought of Persia and the East seemed to have vanished from Alexander’s head.

One night at yet another banquet, I felt divorced from all and everyone around me. I thought of Ephesus and of defeating Darius. I drank my wine meditatively.

“Ephesus!”

Alexander was bringing me to attention. He motioned me into his private chambers. I don’t think Aristedes noticed. He was too drunk and too busy with his boy. I remembered the rocks above Issus and wondered if Alexander wanted to take a turn with me while my Thracian was distracted. This might be good. However, Hephaestion was already there. I wondered how else to use this opportunity.

“You are thinking, Prince Lysimachus. This is an odd time for thoughts.” Alexander indicated the party with a leer over his shoulder.

“I am thinking, my lord.”

“Tell me.”

“Darius, sire. And Persia.”

“You want both dead.” I nodded.

“You will get your wish. We turn north in two days. Until then, enjoy yourself.” Hephaestion took his hand, while I left them to themselves.

In two days we marched toward Mesopotamia. We crossed the Tigris and Euphrates without opposition. Darius had decided to meet us at Gaugamela, our informers told us. At last, we would destroy the Persian Empire and throne.

At our new camp, on the evening of our arrival, I supervised our tent’s reconstruction. Aristedes stood by, joking with other idle men. I had given up asking him to help. Alexander approached and all of us came to attention.

“Come with me, Ephesus,” he commanded. Aristedes also stepped forward. “No, my friend. I need someone who speaks Persian. Besides,” he chuckled, “you are so gigantic the enemy would see you even in the dark. Your lover and I are both small. Come, Lysimachus.” I followed, without a look back. Aristedes had been my hope of reaching Alexander. That hope had been realized.

We rode with hoofs bound with cloth, then walked the last bit to an overhang above the fires of the massive camp. Before we could comment on the panorama below us, Alexander put his finger to his lips. We heard the sentries’ horses and hid among the rocks, springing on the riders as they came noisily along. I shouted to them in Persian as they struggled. They all froze at their own language.

I introduced them to Alexander and urged them to speak the truth. It did not take much urging. Within moments, they had told us numbers of men and the location of hidden armaments and traps. Within more moments, they were all dead, killed at Alexander’s order. We walked and rode back to our camp of Greeks.

“You did well, Lysimachus,” Alexander said once we had dismounted. “You have earned a favor. What is it?” I merely smiled. He laughed at me. “You Ionians! Too subtle for us northern Greeks.” Then he laughed again. “Of course, maybe not too subtle for Thracians.” He gave me a wink outside his tent, and I walked back to mine.

Aristedes rushed outside as soon as he heard my footsteps. “You’re back! I was afraid…” With that he pulled me into our tent and pushed me onto the bed, holding me for a long time without words. His eyes startled me; I could see his soul. I gently urged him back.

“Lie down,” I whispered and began to massage his feet, his calves and thighs. When I reached his cock, I stroked it as gently as I had stroked his legs.

“You know what I like, beloved.”

I winced at the word. We had never spoken of love. I wasn’t sure I was capable of such a lie. Instead of answering, I slid my mouth over his engorged cock, taking it entirely. Aristedes drew a sharp intake of breath.

“You are so good at this, Lysimachus. So good.”

His cock filled my mouth to choking and my jaw to breaking. I slid back up the shaft before I gagged, then down again slowly. I was his opposite in lovemaking; I knew how to elongate pleasure. He tried to roll on top of me, but I held him still, my body on his legs, my hands working up his hairy forearms to his massive biceps and bulging chest. There I squeezed the mounds and had him moaning like a woman. Perhaps tonight he would let me fuck him.

But it was not to be. With a steady rise and roll, he maneuvered me beneath him on the bed and then it was short work before my legs were on his shoulders and his cock up my ass, insistent and rapid. I played with my chest and jerked my cock and rolled my head back and forth. Aristedes liked the effect.

“Come first, my beauty,” he whispered into my ear before he bit. I followed his instruction and jerked and pinched myself until my back was arching, holding his weight above me. It was then, in a rush, that he came, seconds after I spurted my aromatic seed between us. “Oh, oh, oh!” he yelled, as if he were wounded.

He came in aftershocks for several seconds, his mouth on mine, hands holding my head in place. “That was the best, beloved,” he said, giving me a final kiss before he withdrew his cock. For the first time, I felt a strange emptiness and wished him back inside me, but he enclosed me in his arms and fell asleep so I repressed that unwelcome feeling and let him slumber. We would both need our rest for Gaugamela.

When the battle came, we were more than ready, Greeks and mercenaries alike. Days had been spent in training and planning, nights in drinking and bravado. At last, Alexander told of his intention to strike, in council and to the men. I was sure I would not sleep that night, but Aristedes was more attentive to my needs in bed than usual and afterward we both drifted off and slept well. I trusted in our sentries’ honor and in Darius’s cowardice.

The next morning, we took our places again near the rear of the army, waiting for the dust cloud to rise ahead. There would be no Issus for us here—the last would not be first—but I knew there would be plenty of Persians for all Greeks to slaughter. Darius though would fall to other men, if he did not run again.

The dust cloud rose and the shouting with it. We marched slowly forward and then ran when an opening appeared. Ephesians and Thracians moved into it as a wedge, with Aristedes and myself at the point, parting men as we passed. I began to believe we might be essential and to hope again that I might kill Darius with my own hands.

We cut down Persians left and right, thrusting with pikes, slashing with swords, blood spurting onto our hair and clothes, limbs detaching from our enemies, helmets falling faster than heads. On and on we pushed, farther and farther into them, ignoring their cries, aiming for Darius. I could see him, standing on his gilded chariot, gazing frantically in all directions.

“Stop, Lysimachus!” Aristedes yelled into my ear. “We are surrounded!”

We did seem to be the only Greeks among the Persians. I did not want my men enveloped, so I instructed a runner to reconnoiter our position vis-à-vis the front. He returned, astounded.

“Alexander is behind us!”

“Behind us?” It was hard to hear through the cries of battle and of dying.

“Yes, Prince Lysimachus. Behind us. He is urging us forward.”

“Then forward it is!” I said to him and returned to butchering. “Let Alexander follow us,” I said more softly, which was good because he was suddenly there beside me.

“Well done, priest! Where is Darius? Ah, there. Here man, lend me your spear.” A stunned Ephesian yeoman handed his weapon over to our great king and god.

I watched Darius while Alexander hefted the unfamiliar spear onto his shoulder. I damned such bad luck after good to have worked my way through the masses to the coward king, and yet not be able to take the chance to kill him. I tried once.

“Here, my lord. I will handle it for you. These Ionian spears are a little different.”

“I think I have it, Lysimachus. Stand clear.”

I reluctantly stepped aside and watched as he sent the shaft toward Darius’s shriveled heart. I listened, too. Something about the song the missile sang in its travel through the air was off. It would not strike its mark.

It did not, passing inches from Darius’s wild-eyed face, close enough to send him on his heels again. He jumped from his chariot onto a convenient horse and disappeared into the mob.

“May you split!” Alexander cursed. I thought to myself it was a little late for that. He turned to me, smiling. “We almost did it though, didn’t we?” He was probably happiest at moments such as these, with the canceling shouts of men and clamor of swords.

We attended again to killing every Persian within reach. Alexander and his guards drifted left and we drifted right. As word of Darius’s personal retreat spread, his men followed and Aristedes and I stopped to talk. “Let other men take the hunt,” he said, his hands on my shoulders, holding me in place. “You should have thrown that spear,” he said next.

“Yes,” I agreed. “I should have.”

He busied himself with accepting presents from the dead while I wondered what it would take to kill Darius. My answer came the next day. Alexander confirmed the rumor at our council: Darius had been assassinated by one of his own generals. I asked to see Alexander alone that night and he agreed.

I bathed carefully and put on my best clothing. My servant curled my hair in the Ionian way. I went to Alexander while Aristedes was busy with his men.

“Welcome, Prince Lysimachus. Would you have some wine?” He filled a flagon for me and drank from his. I bent my head back with drinking and then, thus fortified, began to ask my boon.

“My lord, I have stayed with you faithfully—”

“And now you want to return to Ephesus.”

“Yes,” I stammered out. “How did you know?”

“Why else would you come alone to me at night in your royal robes and scented body?” He patted the cushions beside him. “Sit here.”

When I had settled, he asked the one question I thought he might.

“What of Aristedes?”

I sat up as erectly as I could and gave the demigod look for look. “He is King of Thrace. I will be King of Ephesus. What future can we have together with such responsibilities, at such a distance?”

“You have a cold heart, Lysimachus, but a warm body,” Alexander said, reaching inside my garment. He flicked my left nipple casually back and forth, watching my body react. I closed my eyes and licked my lips for him, thrusting out my chest to meet his touch. “There will still be a cost,” he said. “I have wanted you from Issus on. Are you prepared to pay?”

I stood and removed my clothing as if my actions had been broken into parts. I presented myself to him, while he looked at me appraisingly. “Yes,” he said. “It is how I remember.” And then he pulled me down to him again.

While he caressed my cheek and kissed my lips, I thought of Hephaestion. While he pinched and soothed my nipples, I thought of Aristedes, but when he raised my legs and placed them on his shoulders, I thought of home.

After an oddly uninterrupted hour, my lord and new master smiled that he was through and handed me a prepared scroll. Perhaps he was a god to have such clairvoyance. I reattached my clothing, straightened my hair and took the signed paper with me. I did not look back.

“Why do you stay with him?” I asked that night in bed with Aristedes.

He fumbled with my body, trying to stop me from thinking and talking. I pushed him away. He tried again. I jumped up and sat on the stool, watching him. He settled back onto our bed, supporting his huge head with thick furry arms decorated with permanent blue images.

“He is Alexander. He commands; we follow.”

“You know he wants to go on. Persia is not enough for him.”

Aristedes remained quiet. I hesitated, wondering whether I could tell him. I decided I had to, if not now then soon, very soon.

“I am turning back.”

He sat up quickly. “He won’t let you.”

“He has already agreed.”

“No! How?”

I looked at him, and he saw the reason. He was on me in an instant.

“You whore! You sold yourself!”

“I want to go home. My goal was to defeat Persia and keep Ephesus and the rest of Ionia Greek. That is done.”

“But what about me?” he bellowed. “Am I nothing to you?”

“We are royal princes. Our lives are not our own.”

“They are here,” he reasoned. “We are together here.”

“Eventually, we will be killed or you will return to Thrace.”

“Perhaps not.” He held me close, almost suffocating me. “Don’t leave me, Lysimachus. I love you.”

Neither of us had said those words before. Hearing them, I felt some regret. I let him guide me back to our bed. I allowed him to kiss my lips and face, chin and neck. I felt his hands on my chest and his fingers manipulate my nipples. I opened my mouth, and his tongue entered. His hands reached between my legs. I raised them for him, and two fingers eased inside my asshole, caressing the inside of me. When his cock slid in after the fingers had prepared the way, I arched my head back, baring my neck for him as he bit and licked. His groin battered against me, pounding harder and deeper, pushing me down until my legs were against the bed, locked in place by his blue arms. I heard myself moan, “I love you, too,” as his cock made mine burst across my stomach and his erupted inside me.

He made love to me most of that night. Finally, he slept, but I did not. I rose at daylight, dressed quietly and went to my men, letting Aristedes sleep. I took nothing but a chain he sometimes wore around his neck.

My men were eager to return home, to live in peace with the wealth they had earned and stolen. They packed quickly.

We started walking through the camp back toward Ephesus. I would return to my wife and children. I would rule Ephesus after my father’s death. I would be Alexander’s ally, satrap or whatever he might require or want from me. I would forget Aristedes, or at least try. I removed his necklace and made to throw it down to the dirt, but my true voice stopped me.

No! Don’t! it said inside me, and for once in my life I listened.

I returned my remembrance of Alexander’s Persian war to my neck and commanded my men to travel north and west. We were a long way from home and had begun our return. We had best keep going. Perhaps if Aristedes survived… I pushed the thought from my head.

“Forward,” I told my commanders. “Forward!” they yelled to their men. Forward, I thought, thinking more of who and what was behind me in a canvas tent on the edge of Asia. I said a prayer and began walking.