Chapter 24
“O, dearest of men (though you are alive no more, I will still number you, child, among my loved ones), never again will you touch this chin of mine with your hand and embrace me….”
As I lie here, I remember these words from “The Bacchae.” I see us still on Mount Merus, where the tributes to Dionysus bloomed like the ivy and the laurel we had not seen since we left Macedon. Were we homesick? I scarcely allowed myself the luxury of thinking so. Besides, home followed me like a foot soldier, so that no matter the journey, I was home, with my quest and my loves.
Where you with us, then, my Hephaestion? No, you had gone ahead with half the army through the Khyber Pass to the Indus—just as you have gone on now….
“O, dearest of men (though you are alive no more, I will still numbe
