The Conqueror's Wife
Page 1
PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF STEPHANIE THORNTON
THE CONQUEROR’S WIFE
“Thornton boldly goes where other historical novelists might fear to tread. In her recounting of Alexander the Great’s epic quest . . . she brings to life the treachery, glory, and intrigue of a fascinating ancient world.”
—C. W. Gortner, bestselling author of Mademoiselle Chanel
“Through the eyes of the fascinating and fierce women in Alexander’s life, Thornton enchants the reader. . . . Her accessible and energetic writing brings [this] world to life while giving voice to the voiceless in this vivid tale of the women in the shadow of Alexander’s glory. What a talent!”
—Stephanie Dray, bestselling author of Lily of the Nile
“A conqueror slices through the ancient world on pages that writhe with ambition and danger, yet the reader is swept in by unexpected heroines. This gritty epic is voiced by the tenacious women who surrounded Alexander the Great, proving he would’ve been nothing of the sort without them.”
—Marci Jefferson, author of Girl on the Golden Coin
THE TIGER QUEENS
“A testament to Thornton’s writing prowess . . . a stunning achievement!”
—Barbara Wood, New York Times bestselling author of The Serpent and the Staff and Rainbows on the Moon
“A gripping epic of sacrifice, revenge, and conquest . . . kept me riveted from beginning to end.”
—Michelle Moran, national bestselling author of The Second Empress
“Beautiful, earthy, and completely accessible prose . . . classic historical fiction at its best.”
—Historical Novel Society
“An immersive, enlightening epic . . . intrigue, romance, and strong, willful heroines.”
—Booklist
DAUGHTER OF THE GODS
“Stephanie Thornton’s heroines are bold, brave, and powerful.”
—Kate Quinn, author of Lady of the Eternal City
“A wonderfully intimate and dramatic evocation of ancient Egypt, where one headstrong young woman dares to become pharaoh. Stephanie Thornton vividly portrays the heat and the danger, the passion and the heartbreak, of Hatshepsut’s struggle as she defies even the gods to ensure success on the throne of Egypt. A touching love story combines with a thrilling tale of death, courage, and political intrigue to produce a superbly researched and powerfully written novel. This is the kind of book that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. A remarkable story, remarkably told.”
—Kate Furnivall, national bestselling author of The Russian Concubine and Shadows on the Nile
“An epic saga that brings ancient Egypt to life with vivid imagery and lovely prose. Stephanie Thornton is a rising star!”
—Stephanie Dray, bestselling author of Daughters of the Nile
THE SECRET HISTORY
“What a heroine! Stephanie Thornton’s Theodora is tough and intelligent, spitting defiance against the cruel world of the Byzantine Empire. Her rise from street urchin to emperor’s consort made me want to stand up and cheer. Her later years as empress are great fun to read, but it was her early struggle as actress and courtesan that really had me roaring: either with rage at the misfortunes heaped on this poor girl or with delight as she once more picked herself up with a steely glint in her eye and kept on going.”
—Kate Quinn
“The Secret History tells the tangled but very human story of Empress Theodora. . . . This remarkable woman, beloved wife of Emperor Justinian, mastered the intrigue and politics of sixth-century Byzantium while keeping dark personal secrets that could bring her death. Loss, ambition, and lust keep this rich story moving at top speed. Stephanie Thornton writes a remarkable first novel that brings a little-known woman to full, vibrant life again. A sprawling and irresistible story.”
—Jeane Westin, author of The Spymaster’s Daughter
“A fascinating and vivid account. . . . The life of the Empress Theodora leaps from the page, as colorful and complex as the woman herself.”
—Michelle Diener, author of The Emperor’s Conspiracy
“A story of the strength of women . . . Thornton’s well-conceived and engrossing tale exalts a historical figure of ‘true grit.’”
—Library Journal
“If there is one book you choose to read on ancient times, let it be The Secret History. Theodora is a true Byzantine icon, and her story is a timeless inspiration that needs to be heard.”
—Historical Novel Society
“You’ll feel for Theodora. You’ll want to scream, to save her, and to cheer for her bravery all at the same time. By a twist of fate, the outspoken and intelligent beauty meets the emperor’s nephew and steals his heart. She defies every challenge and becomes one of the most powerful women in the Roman Empire. Their love story is one for the ages. Theodora’s dramatic tale is exquisitely crafted in this can’t-miss summer read. I couldn’t put it down for a moment.”
—San Francisco Book Review
ALSO BY STEPHANIE THORNTON
The Secret History
Daughter of the Gods
The Tiger Queens
NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
Published by New American Library,
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
This book is an original publication of New American Library.
Copyright © Stephanie Thornton, 2015
Readers Guide copyright © Penguin Random House, 2015
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Thornton, Stephanie, 1980–
The conqueror’s wife: a novel of Alexander the Great / Stephanie Thornton.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-698-17652-2
1. Alexander, the Great, 356 B.C.–323 B.C.—Fiction. 2. Greece—History—Macedonian Expansion, 359–323 B.C.—Fiction. 3. Roxana, consort of Alexander the Great, approximately 310 B.C.—Fiction. 4. Macedonia—History—To 168 B.C.—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3620.H7847C66 2015
813'.6—dc23 2015019747
Designed by Laura K. Corless
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
Contents
Praise
Also by Stephanie Thornton
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
; CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
EPILOGUE
Cast of Characters
Author's Note
Further Reading on the Empire of Alexander the Great
Readers Guide
Excerpt from The Secret History
About the Author
To Tim and Daine Crowley for being as tough as Alexander to champion all my writing
PROLOGUE
Alexander deemed himself a god, the mythic descendant of Achilles and the son of Zeus, and entire nations fell to their knees in ecstatic worship of him. But he was no god any more than we were nymphs and dryads, benevolent four-hoofed centaurs or vengeful three-headed chimeras.
He called himself Alexander the Great and claimed that he conquered the world. But he would have been lucky to conquer a stinking midden heap populated by swarms of biting flies had it not been for our cunning and daring.
Alexander founded cities of culture and learning, and named them after himself in a fit of hubris. But he razed more cities than there are stars in the sky, slaughtered their men, and burned their ancient palaces so that the four winds carried the gray ashes to rain down upon lands more distant than Alexandria-the-Farthest.
He claimed that the earth trembled, mountains quivered, and oceans overflowed their shores at his approach, but without us, Alexander would never have mounted a single golden throne or worn the coveted eagle diadem of Persia, much less the combined crowns of Greece, Egypt, and India.
Like Achilles, he sought glory and everlasting fame, and beseeched the gods that his name would echo throughout history. Yet so many of his baser deeds have been forgotten, or retold to forge him into a hero worthy of epic ballads.
But that is only part of the story.
It was because of him, and for him, that we did great, and also terrible, things.
Just as Zeus sat in his throne room atop Olympus, surrounded by the gods of violence and light, the goddesses of desire and the hearth, so too was Alexander surrounded by us.
His lover.
His sister.
His wife.
His soldier.
We were murderers and poisoners, innocents and warriors. And without us, Alexander would have been only a man.
Instead, he was a god.
CHAPTER 1
336 BCE
Aigai, Macedon
Thessalonike
I thought the wedding feast a threefold gift from Olympus: We celebrated our newly made political alliances, dined on more Delian honey cakes than I could stuff in my cheeks, and witnessed the return of my golden brother from his scandalous exile. Yet in the days to come I would wonder if we had offended the gods or if perhaps the Olympians merely found our petty lives tiresome after the extravagance of the marriage ceremony. Regardless of the cause, the three old crones of Fate set their rusty shears to cutting countless lifestrings after that terrible day.
The morning began with a banquet of dried apricots, flat staititas topped with sesame seeds and goat cheese, and crusty loaves of olive bread meant to symbolize the fertility of the recently deflowered bride—one of my barely known half sisters—wed today to a dour client king of Molossia.
“You have honey on your cheek, Thessalonike.” The youngest of my father’s seven wives and his current favorite, Eurydice, pursed her cinnabar-stained lips at me from across the women’s table. “And I think you’ve had quite enough apricots, lest they make you plumper than you already are.”
I rubbed my sleep-heavy eyes and licked away the sticky sweetness with my tongue, earning stern glares from all my father’s wives and a lopsided grin from my half brother Arrhidaeus.
“Like a frog, Nike,” he said, bouncing in his seat and clapping his fat hands before him. The son of a common Illyrian dancing girl, Arrhidaeus was twice my ten summers, but his mind remained that of a child. Despite his towering height and broad shoulders, he was allowed to sit on the women’s side of the hall because none of the men would have him.
“Or a salamander.” I laughed, letting my tongue flick between my teeth until Eurydice kicked my foot beneath the table. I scowled, wishing my pretty stepmother were still confined to her chambers with her infant son, where she couldn’t nag me.
The last apricot drizzled with honey beckoned, so I shoved it into my mouth before Eurydice could swat my hand. This afternoon would include endless recitations of Homer’s moth-eaten poems and prizes of gold bullion for the finest sculpture celebrating the marriage alliance between Epirus and Macedon, but I was hoping to sneak away to watch the javelin throwers and pankration matches. If I was lucky, maybe the pankratiasts would break the rules and try to gouge out each other’s eyes.
If I were ever a naked and oiled pankratiast—which I never would be because I had the misfortune of being born both a girl and royal—the first thing I would do was go for the eyes.
In fact, Arrhidaeus had long ago shortened my name to Nike—the rest of my name proving too cumbersome—and it suited me to share the name with the winged goddess of victory, for like Nike I loved to win above all things.
“Come,” Eurydice said, standing and smoothing the elaborate pleats of her woolen peplos. “We shall continue our weaving until the men return from the arena. Then Philip has granted us permission to listen to the poets.”
I stabbed my finger inside an olive, wishing I could do the same to my ears when it came time for the recitation. I dropped the pit to the ground, then winked at Arrhidaeus before I crushed the salty green flesh between my teeth. My half brother didn’t notice, being too busy digging with a tiny silver spoon into a pomegranate. Eurydice swept off in a cloud of violet perfume. No one noticed—or perhaps cared—when I didn’t follow. My father’s youngest wife had pretensions of being a dutiful matron, but Eurydice was better suited to gossiping about the latest fashion of beaded girdles or how much her recent treatment of foul-smelling ceruse had whitened her skin.
“Follow me,” I whispered to Arrhidaeus, casting a furtive glance around the hall.
“Where?” he asked. His thick lips drooped into a frown as he gave up on the spoon and used his fingers to fish the last juicy red seeds from the pomegranate’s husk.
“To the arena,” I said, pulling him from the table even as he licked his scarlet-stained palms. “I’d rather pluck my eyes out than spend the day weaving.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t hurt your eyes.”
“I won’t, my Titan, at least not if you hurry.”
My half brother grinned at my name for him. The Titans were immortal giants with tremendous strength (although they’d been overthrown by the Olympians, which I chose to ignore). Regardless, the nickname was kinder than the others my father’s court called Arrhidaeus: “donkey face,” “walnut brain,” and “half-wit.” Several of the nobles’ foulmouthed sons had felt the sting of my slingshot in response, so now they held their tongues when I was nearby.
I glanced at the courtyard’s columned entrance, the wilted olive branch that announced the birth of Eurydice’s son still tied to the plinths, and saw that my eldest half brother, Alexander, and his boyhood companion Hephaestion had arrived, their hair damp and complexions ruddy from the baths. Their heads were bent in deep conversation—one the color of a lion’s mane in summer sunshine and the other with curls as dark as a crow’s wing in winter. Their claim on each other’s affections
was well-known throughout the palace and they’d walked in each other’s shadows since Alexander’s recent return to Aigai following his exile. Despite that, most of the women—and some of the men—now swiveled in the direction of my beautiful, scandal-laden brother, several holding chunks of bread suspended in midair as he and his friend passed.
Hephaestion’s chiseled features softened as he stooped to whisper in my brother’s ear before striding toward the table on the men’s side of the courtyard, its walls decorated with a fresco of a griffin attacking a stag. Alexander arranged himself stiffly on a dining couch, his tawny hair parted in a severe line down the middle, and his lips curved into a frown as he glanced at our father’s empty dais. My brother’s return had inspired continuing whispers that Eurydice’s newly delivered infant son would supplant him as our father’s heir.
Life had been simple until my father married Eurydice of Macedon, her belly already swollen with a boy child, or so she had crowed to anyone who would listen. Perhaps it was a result of the wine or the summer’s heat, but at their wedding ceremony Alexander’s blood had almost been shed after Eurydice’s father had offered a public prayer to Zeus to grant my father a new, full-blooded heir. Alexander, born of Philip’s Macedonian and Olympias’ Epirean blood, had leapt from his seat in a rage and thrown his cup of wine at Eurydice’s father, causing my father to draw his sword. There was a collective gasp of shock as my father lunged forward, presumably to stab his own son, but instead he tripped on the edge of his couch and fell face-first to the ground. In the outrage that followed, Alexander and his mother were forced to flee from Aigai, leaving me bereft of both a brother and the woman who had raised me after my own mother died giving me life.
Alexander had been ordered home for the wedding, though our father utterly ignored him now that Eurydice had birthed his fully Macedonian son. Olympias remained in exile, abandoned in Epirus with only her devotions to Dionysus, her famed pet snakes (which I adored, especially the spotted leopard snake I’d taught to tickle my feet with its tongue), and her hopes of one day seeing Alexander on the throne to keep her content. And that meant Eurydice remained in control of my father’s household.