Set during Alexander the Great's eastern campaigns (~330 BC), The Companion follows Marcus, 28, a Black man raised by a Macedonian military family — the Agrianes clan who served Philip II and continued with Alexander — as a Companion cavalry officer. Marcus is entirely Macedonian in language, culture, and identity, bearing a Greek name in the Macedonian tradition, speaking Macedonian Greek, trained in the cavalry tactics of Alexander's elite force. He is one of a diverse multinational force that Alexander's campaigns assembled. During the conquest of Persia, Marcus encounters Daria, a Persian noblewoman from the ancient city of Persepolis — a woman whose world is being absorbed by the very army Marcus serves. Their relationship is one of the most politically fraught possible kinds: love between conqueror and conquered, honest on both sides in ways that the historical moment makes almost impossible. The series is a meditation on war, love, and what loyalty means when the empire you serve is also the catastrophe of someone you love.
Episode 1 — Persepolis
The army enters Persepolis. Marcus encounters Daria in the library — she is removing scrolls before the soldiers reach them. He helps her. Neither knows what this means yet.
Episode 5 — The Language
Marcus learning Persian. Daria teaching him. The intimacy of language instruction in the middle of a war.
Episode 10 — The Covenant
Series finale: Marcus choosing, at personal cost to his military standing, to protect Daria's family. What he gives up and what he gains are equal and opposite.
