#nymphaeum

Nymphaeum, a shrine to nymphs

**

The room was still dark when Alexander woke. The air held the quiet warmth of sleep, bodies at rest, breath slow and even in the close dark.

He did not move at first. Hephaestion was wrapped around him, close and solid, one arm drawn firmly across Alexander’s waist, his hand resting low against his side as if he had pulled him in sometime in the night and never let go. Their legs were tangled beneath the blanket, the length of him pressed warm and steady along Alexander’s back.

Alexander lay there for a moment longer, simply aware of it. The weight of Hephaestion’s arm. The slow rise and fall of his breathing. The unthinking certainty of the hold.

He shifted slightly, and Hephaestion tightened his hold at once. His arm drew in, pulling Alexander back against him on instinct , his face pressing briefly into the back of Alexander’s shoulder as if to keep him there.

“I’m getting up,” Alexander murmured.

A low sound answered him, more feeling than word. Protest, soft and immediate. Hephaestion did not let go.

Alexander turned his head as much as he could and caught his mouth in a slow kiss, meant to wake him gently rather than wrest himself free.

That did it. Hephaestion stirred properly this time, breath changing, his hand flexing once against Alexander’s side before loosening enough to let him turn.

“I’ll meet you,” he said, voice rough with sleep, still close, still not fully releasing him.

“Later,” Alexander said softly.

Hephaestion’s eyes opened a fraction, enough to find his. “Don’t forget the figures.”

“I won’t.”

Hephaestion pulled him back once more, this time awake enough to chase the kiss properly before letting him go. Alexander rose quietly from the bedding.

Arrhidaeus still slept nearby, sprawled without care, one arm thrown wide, blanket twisted around one leg. He did not stir as Alexander crossed the room.

Alexander took the wrapped bundle from beside the bed and set it into the satchel. Then he slipped out into the corridor and made his way down to the kitchens, gathering what he needed without hesitation. Milk. Honey. Wine. Each chosen with care. Each settled securely into the bag.

Then he stepped outside the living quarters at the gymnasium. The air met him cool and damp, touched with the scent of water and the dark green smell of the grounds before sunrise. The sky had begun to pale behind the trees, but the sun had not yet risen. Everything felt hushed, suspended.

He took the path downhill. At first it was stone underfoot, familiar and level. Then the path bent, and the ground softened into packed earth as the slope led toward the sanctuary. Trees gathered closer. The open sky above broke into smaller pieces through branches and leaf.

The sound of water reached him before the sight of it. By the time the Nymphaeum opened below, the whole place seemed made of it. The caves sat dark and cool in the rock, and the stream ran clear along the edge of the sanctuary, slipping over stone, breaking into little falls where the ground dropped, gathering in shallow basins that caught the dim early light.

On the way down he stopped at a laurel. Its leaves were dark and glossy in the half-light. Alexander reached up, chose a branch, and cut it cleanly. He stripped several leaves free and held them in his hand, tucking the rest into the satchel for later. Then he continued down.

At the Nymphaeum he set the satchel aside and went first to the water. He crouched at the edge of the stream and rinsed his hands, letting the cold wake him fully. Then he lifted a double handful to his face and pushed his hair back, drawing a steadying breath as the chill ran down his skin.

Only then did he begin the offering. He unstoppered the milk and poured it slowly into one of the basins where the water pooled, watching the white cloud spread and thin as the current took it.

He dipped two fingers into the honey and let it fall in a slow thread into the moving water, watching it catch, stretch, and vanish into the flow.

He laid several laurel leaves at the edge of the basin, pressing them lightly against the wet stone so they would hold.

Then he took up the wine and poured it not into the basin itself, but along the rock above it, letting the dark liquid run down in narrow lines to join the water more gradually.

He stood back then and listened. The whole sanctuary answered in in the sound of the fresh flowing water.

“Be well,” he said quietly.

He remained another moment, then gathered his satchel and moved on.

Beyond the sanctuary the path narrowed quickly. It was not truly a path, only a way known by repetition.

He pushed through low branches and stepped into the clearing. The altar stood where he had left it. The olive stump was low and wide, its top worn smooth by use, the wood darkened by old offerings soaked in and dried again over time. The carved names had deepened with weather and repetition. Leaves and dust had gathered around the edges.

Alexander set the satchel down and knelt to clean the altar. He brushed away the leaves and dust with his hands first, clearing the edges, lifting away the bits that had collected in the shallow cracks. Then he took a cloth and wiped the top more deliberately, not scrubbing away the old stains of wine and honey, only removing what did not belong, and reset what remained. The small dish. The stone. Each put back where it should be.

He sat back on his heels for a moment and looked at it. Only then did he begin.

He unwrapped the amphora first. It fit easily in one hand, a miniature, finely made, the clay smooth, the painted figures clear despite its size. Achilles and Patroclus, close in motion, one just ahead of the other, both turned toward the same fight.

He had commissioned it in town and stood over the work while it was painted, correcting the line of a shoulder, the set of a shield, the distance between them. It had not been left to chance.

He turned it once in his hands now, checking it again, then set it at the back of the stump, angled carefully so it sat steady and faced outward.

Then the two bronze figures. They had come from his mother, meant for offering. He unwrapped them one by one. They were simply warriors, but well made. Round shields, properly formed, each with a central boss. One bore a radiating star worked into the face, the other left plain. Their helmets were crested, cheek guards fitted close to the jaw, the lines clean and functional rather than decorative.

He placed the first and pressed it lightly until it held. The second he set opposite, adjusting both in small increments, turning one, then the other, until the balance settled exactly as he intended.

He checked them again. Satisfied, he reached for the wine, when a branch shifted behind him.

Hephaestion stepped into the clearing, cloak thrown on hastily, hair still loose from sleep. In one hand he carried a small bronze spearhead.

Alexander turned and smiled.

“Meli,” he said. “You’re right on time.”

Hephaestion came forward, his gaze moving over the altar first, taking in the cleaned surface, the miniature amphora at the back, the bronze figures set just so.

“How were the nymphs?”

“Sleepy,” Alexander replied.

“I brought something,” Hephaestion said, holding out the spearhead.

Alexander took it from him and set it carefully with the others.

“Good.”

Hephaestion crouched opposite him. “You started without me.”

“I set it,” Alexander said. “I didn’t finish.”

Alexander took up the wine and poured it over the carved names, slow and deliberate, letting it run into the grooves and darken the wood, and then reached for the honey.

“Honey this time?” Hephaestion asked.

“For immortality,” Alexander clarified.

“Of course.”

“And because his kleos was sweet.”

He dipped his finger into the honey and reached across the altar, tracing it lightly over Hephaestion’s lower lip.

“Sweet,” he said softly. “Just like you.”

Then he kissed him. It began gently. It did not stay that way.

Hephaestion’s hand came at once to Alexander’s waist, pulling him in across the small space between them. The kiss deepened quickly, sharpened by the sweetness still between them. Alexander leaned into it, one hand braced against the altar, the other catching at Hephaestion’s shoulder as the kiss threatened to pull him entirely off balance.

“Mm. My Patroclus,” Alexander hummed into his mouth, and kissed him again, and again, slower only long enough to make it worse.

Hephaestion made a small sound against his mouth, then took a breath and pressed lightly at Alexander’s chest.

“Alex.” he said, lips still kiss-warm. “Achilles,” he said more firmly when Alexander didn’t stop. “The offering.”

“What? This is part of it,” Alexander insisted, sitting back.

Hephaestion’s mouth twitched, but he pushed him back all the same.

“Finish it.”

Alexander exhaled through his nose, more playful heat than annoyance in it, and turned back to the altar.

He poured the wine again, slower this time, filling the carved lines fully. Then he set the laurel beside the names, a few leaves saved from the branch he had cut.

Alexander took a steadying breath, and began.

“Achilles, best of the Achaeans. Patroclus, most beloved.”

His voice was steady now, focused again.

“I give you wine, and honey, and what I have brought with my own hands. Receive them.”

Hephaestion stepped closer and rested his hand at the edge of the stump.

“See me,” Alexander said. “Know me when I come to you again.”

A breath.

“Grant me strength that does not fail. A name that does not fade. Kleos that endures.”

Hephaestion spoke then, low and clear.

“As you are remembered together, let us be remembered the same.”

Alexander pressed his hand once against the wood. “It is given.”

“Remember it,” Hephaestion said.

They knelt there a moment longer in the quiet that followed, then stood and stepped back from the altar together.

As they turned to leave, Hephaestion reached out in passing and straightened one of the bronze figures.

Alexander saw it. He said nothing.

The walk up from the clearing took them through the same green hush, the stream finding them again in flashes through the trees. The light had strengthened while they were there. Water moved bright over stone. The first real warmth of morning had begun to reach the higher branches.

They fell into step beside one another without speaking at first. Then Alexander said, “He chose it.”

Hephaestion glanced at him. “What?”

“The short life. Long and forgotten, or short and remembered forever.”

Hephaestion’s brow drew slightly. “You think it was really a choice?”

Alexander stepped over a root, barely looking down, his pace steady. “Does it matter?”

Hephaestion didn’t answer immediately. His gaze dropped for a moment to the ground between them, then lifted again, searching Alexander’s face.

“He knew what he was,” Alexander went on. “What he could be. That is what matters. Not the years.” A beat. “The kleos.”

They walked a few more steps in silence. The path narrowed, the sound of water beginning to return somewhere ahead, faint but constant.

“And Patroclus?” Hephaestion asked.

Alexander didn’t answer at once.

His jaw tightened, just slightly. His gaze stayed forward, fixed on the path, as if the answer required more than speech.

Then, quieter, he said, “He made it worth it. You. You make it worth it.”

Hephaestion slowed half a step, looking at him properly now. “And that is enough?”

Alexander’s mouth curved, but there was nothing light in it.

“It is the only thing that is.”

They walked on, closer together now, shoulders rubbing.

It was only when the clearing was well behind them and the altar out of sight that Alexander said, flatly, “It was not off.”

Hephaestion did not even pretend not to know what he meant. “It was.”

“It wasn’t!” Alexander insisted.

“Well, I guess it is now.”

Alexander stopped and turned on him, openly annoyed.

“You always do that.”

Hephaestion looked entirely untroubled. “Because you set them crooked.”

“I did not.”

Hephaestion’s mouth twitched. “You did.”

Alexander stared at him, jaw tight, then turned sharply and started uphill again in a huff.

Le syndrome de Stendhal / The Stendhal Syndrome Dario Argento. 1996

Fountain Villa Doria Pamphilj, Via di S. Pancrazio, 00152 Rome RM, Italy See in map