On their return from a hunt

One day, on their return from a hunt, Aristotle met them at the entrance dressed in a strange way -he was wearing high leather boots that came halfway up his legs and an apron with a bib. He inspected the animals they had killed and chose a female boar that was obviously pregnant. 'Please have that brought to my laboratory,' he said to the chief huntsman and nodded to Alexander to follow him. This meant that the lesson about to take place was for the prince alone. The tutor's orders were immediately carried out and the boar was placed on a table alongside which Theophrastus had arranged a series of surgical instruments, all perfectly sharpened and polished. Aristle asked for a scalpel and turned to the young Prince. If you're not too tired I'd like you to help with this operation.Yo'll learn many important things. Over there are the materials necessary for writing, he added pointing to pen, ink and some sheets of papyrus on a lectern, 'that way you'll be able to take notes and remember everuthing you see during the dissection.' Alexander put his bow and quiver down in a corner, took up the pen and the papyrus and moved towards the table. The philosopher made an incision along the sow's belly and, inside the animal uterus, there appeared six small boars. He measured them one by one. 'The two weeks from being born,' he observed. 'Here, this is the uterus, or the matrix where the fetuses take form. This internal sack here is the placenta.' Alexander managed to control his initial repugnance for the smell and the sight of the bloody innards and began to take notes and even to draw. You see? The organs of a pig or a boat, which is the same thing, are very similar to those of a human being. Look: these are the lungs, the bellows that allow us to breathe, and his membrane which separates the upper part of the innards, the noble part, from the lower part is the phren and the ancients believed that this housed the soul. In our language all the words that indicate the activity of thought or fo reasoning or even madness, which is the degenaration of thought, derive from the term phren. A membrane.' Alexander would like to ask what moved the phren, what regulated its rhythmic rising and falling but he already knew the answer - ?there are no simple answers to complex problems.'And he choose to say nothing. 'Now this id the heart: a pump like the one used to empy the bilges on ships, but infinitely more complicated and efficient. This is the home of feeling and intellect because its movement accelerates if a man is under the influence of anger or love, or simple lust. In truth, my heart's movement accelerates even if I simply walk up the stairs, and this demostrates that it is the centre of all functions in the life of man.' Índeed,' Alexander agreed, staring in bewilderment at his tutor's bloody hands as they rooted through the innards of the boar. 'A plausible hypotesis might be that when life's intensity increases it is necessary for the blood to circulate more quickly. And there are two systems of circulation – the one that comes from the heart and the one that goes back to the heart, completely separate, as you can see. In this respect,' he added, placing the scalpel on the tray, ' we are very much like animals. But there is one thing in which we are clearly different,' he added. 'Hammer and chisel,' he then said to Theophrastus who immediately handed over the instruments, and which a few sharp experts blows Aristotle opened the animal's skull. 'The brain. Our brain is much larger. I have always thought that all those twists and turns were to help disperse body heat, but human does not seem to produce any more heat than any of the animals. It is a problem I will have to give some thought to...' Aristotle had finished and he passes the instruments to Eheophatrus to clean. He then washed his hands and asked Alexander for his bnotes and sketches. 'Excellent! He said. 'I couldn't have done better myself. Now you may consign this beast to the butcher. I am very partial to sausage and offal, but unfortunately for some time now I haven't been able to digest them very well. Have them grill me some chops for supper, if you don't mind. 'From the book: Alexander: Child of A Dream. By Valerio Massino Manfredi. Translated by Iain Halliday

'By Zeus' exclaimed Alexander

'By Zeus' exclaimed Alexander on hearing the unkown voice coming from the depths of his own room. He put his hand to his word and went in. 'It's not that sword yu'll be wanting to thrust into me,' said the voice. And there before him, sitting on his bed, was a stunningly beautiful girl he had never seen before. 'Who are you and who gave you permission to enter my room?' He asked. 'I am the surprise that your father, King Philip, has organized for you. My name is Pancaspe.' 'I am sorry, Panscape,' replied Alexander, pointing to the door, ' but if I wnanted this type of surprise I'd be quite capable of organizing it for myself. Farewell.' The girl got to her feet, but ratherbthan moving towards the door, with a flick of her wrist she undid the hooks that held her peplum and stood there before Alexander, naked except for a pair of leggins made of silver ribbons. Alexander's arm, which an instant previously had been raised to indicate the door. Fell limply to his side and speechless, he feasted his eyes on her. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life, so beautiful she took his breath away and made the blood rush through his veins. Her neck was soft and smooth, her shoulders straight, her breasts firm and erect, her thigts shapely and smooth as though sculpted from Paros marble. He felt his tongue go dry against his palate. The young woman moved closer, took him by the hand and led him towards the bath chamber. 'May I undress you?' she asked as she began inhooking his chiton and his military cloak, his chlamys. 'I'm worried that leptine will be furious and that...' Alexander began to stutter. 'Perhaps, but you will certainly be happy and satisfied. I assure you.' The Prince was now also naked and the girl clung to him with all her strentgh, but as soon as she felt the extent of his remarkable action she pulled away and led him into the bath. 'It will be even better in here.You'll see.' Alexander acquiesced and se began to stroke him with a skill and dexterity that up until that moment had simply been unimaginable for him. She excited him almost to the point of climax and then retreated delicately to begin her caresses again in more marginal areas of his body. When she felt that he was truly exploding with excitement she slipped out of the bath and went to lie down on the bed, dripping perfumed water under the golden light of the lamps. She opened her legs and the young man dived on her, but she whispered in his ear, 'That must be how you use the battering ram when you have to bring down the walls of a city. Let me be yous guide here and you¡ll see---' Alexander let her take the lead and he felt himslef sinking into pleasure like a stone into a water, a pleasure that greww stronger and more intense until the explosion came. But Panscape still wanted more and she began to stimulate him again with her moist, burning mouth before she mounted him and took the lead once more, sloly this time, in their second dance of love. And that night the young Prince understood that pleasure could take him a thousand times higher than his experience with Leptine's rough and ingenious lovemaking. From the book: Alexander: Child of A Dream. By Valerio Massino Manfredi. Translated by Iain Halliday