Well there is a whole heap of companion henchmen in the hall of heroes.
Any companions you could possibly get later in the game would be awful, having either all or most of their stats/skills/ability points spent in things you may not want OR they just wouldn't be the right level for you (I would have thought the hall of heroes henchmen would just auto-level to your main characters level when you hired them but they don't, and it's stupid)
You hire a henchman, then dismiss him. He goes to stand in Hall of Heroes and when you tell him to rejoin he is brought on par with your XP. Not the best implementation I admit.
