The Conqueror's Wife

by Stephanie Thornton

  “All three,” I chirped proudly.

  Olympias cleared her throat, bringing me back to reality. “That’s enough, Hephaestion,” she said sternly. “You shall dine on Alexander’s dust if you don’t follow now.”

  And thus, Hephaestion bowed to us, kicked his horse in the ribs, and charged off, toward Alexander, Thessaly, and the victories yet to come.

  I didn’t know it then, but it would be many years before I’d see Alexander again, at yet another funeral that would set the shears of the three Fates into a deadly flurry once more.

  CHAPTER 2

  Thebes, Greece

  Hephaestion

  “Smile, Alexander,” I said, as he reined in his demon-horse Bucephalus amid the city’s death throes. “You craved a good fight since we left Aigai, and today you had it.”

  Alexander glowered at Thebes’ stone citadel, looking far older than his twenty years. “Thebes underestimated me. I shall not halt the slaughter until the city’s blood stains Bucephalus’ knees.”

  “That’s the last thing Ox-Head needs.” I wrinkled my nose even as Bucephalus snorted at me, baring huge yellow teeth beneath a ridiculous helmet of golden horns that made him look like a misshapen bull.

  Artemis’ tits, but I hated that horse.

  “The oceans could turn red with Theban blood and it still wouldn’t be enough,” Alexander said, nudging Bucephalus’ ribs and pushing forward into the city.

  I looked to the heavens before I urged my horse to follow, for Alexander had a flair for the dramatic when he didn’t get his way. Thebes had dared revolt against Alexander after Thessaly had so kindly capitulated, quaking in their greaves as they watched Alexander cut steps into the supposedly insurmountable cliff face of Mount Ossa and lead his troops over the top, surrounding the Thessalians and prompting their generous surrender. They’d hailed Alexander as their basileus and heralded him as a hero descended from Achilles, which put him in a kinder mood when it came to sparing their people. Alexander had drunk his fill of Thessalian wine and boasted that there would be easy victories all the way down the peninsula.

  That was before he ran headlong into Thebes and its Sacred Band, the elite military unit who’d snubbed their noses at him and called him an upstart barbarian. Of course, that same unit’s warriors now lay rotting beneath the uncaring sun.

  Not that I was going to mention that to Alexander. The Sacred Band was past saving, but its city still stood.

  Thebes was an unwashed whore of a city, but I didn’t care to see the ancient stone polis razed as Alexander threatened just because they’d put up a good and honorable fight. This, the City of Seven Gates, had birthed my favorite poet, Pindar, yet I doubted whether I’d have time to sightsee at his former home or seek out his urn of ashes amid the looting and pillaging.

  I reined in, waiting as Alexander barked orders at his generals, motioning with succinct gestures where to deploy the cavalry, shield bearers, and foot soldiers to finish securing the city. The sun gleamed off his hair and his golden soldier’s belt, earned when he’d killed his first man in the earlier battle of Thebes with his father. Alexander roared in triumph from Bucephalus’ back, the leopard skin he sat upon gleaming gold and his lion helmet seeming to preen in the sunlight. “Put the city to the sword,” Alexander yelled. “Thebes shall be scourged from the earth today, a warning to those who would declare against me!”

  I might have pointed out then that these were Greeks, not cowardly Persians or stinking Latins, but being Alexander’s bodyguard meant keeping my mouth shut and perhaps impaling a few Thebans with a sarissa to keep them from stabbing him through his cuirass.

  I cursed the Thebans under my breath; the stupid bastards should have surrendered when they had the chance and left me to my crates of wine and my copy of Plato’s Republic.

  The cavalry and foot soldiers moved to the various districts they intended to plunder, black flags of dark smoke unfurling in the city’s western sections and making me shudder at the thought of what treasures the ravenous flames might be destroying. Alexander and I continued through to a newer neighborhood with less graffiti on the walls and fewer stray dogs lurking in the alleys, its wide avenues laden with twisting cypress trees and the polished marble facades of the well-to-do, similar to my father’s home in Macedon. A second of Alexander’s guards joined us: Ptolemy, officially the son of Lagus of Macedon but rumored to be one of Philip’s illegitimate sons, and a man with an appetite for women to rival even that of Zeus.

  My sword aimed in front of me, I pushed through the open gates of a particularly graceful estate. An overturned basket of peas lay near the kitchen entrance and my horse sidestepped a dead slave sprawled facedown in a pool of scarlet. My ear picked up something different here, the angry barkings of what might have passed as raving fishwives.

  “See what that’s about,” Alexander said with a wince. “Before my ears begin to bleed.”

  I gave an exaggerated salute and dismounted, leaving Ptolemy with Alexander as I entered the courtyard.

  “Throw her in with him!” a man yelled, standing next to two other mercenaries, thickheaded Thracians from the looks of their discarded crescent shields. The first gestured wildly toward a well situated at the corner of a tidy garden. The kyria of the house stood across from him, her lovely face an affectation of calm, yet the delicate matron clutched her ruined peplos at her shoulders, and two girls like miniatures of their mother cowered nearby. A trickle of blood from the corner of the mother’s mouth was already growing dark and her pale hair had fallen loose. The largest of the three Thracian brutes finished binding her wrists with a leather thong, then shoved her toward the well while the other two hefted thick paving stones into their arms.

  “I don’t recall there being time for any unscheduled swimming, not while there’s an entire city to be sacked,” I said, lowering my sword as I strode into the garden. “It appears some explanation is warranted.”

  Six heads swiveled toward me, and I’d swear relief flashed over the woman’s face. “This foul bitch murdered our captain,” the first man said, his eyes widening as he snapped to attention at the lion emblem of Alexander’s bodyguard on my golden helmet. His face was smeared with sweat and pockmarks, and his breath might have killed us all. “We’ve arranged for her to greet Charon the boatman on her way to the river Styx.”

  Thracians were famed for being stubborn as mules and slightly less intelligent. A well-trained dog might have found a way to kill their captain and leave the world a better place.

  I waved his boast away. “What I don’t understand is how a mere woman murdered one of your bravest commanders,” I said.

  The man’s lips turned into a sneer as I removed my helmet and ran a hand through my sweat-matted hair. “You’re Hephaestion, right? Shouldn’t you be off protecting Alexander’s manhood?”

  A second Thracian leered at me. “Protecting it by letting Alexander hide it up your arse? We hear he succumbs to your thighs every night.”

  The slur wasn’t the worst I’d heard, but it made me want to bash some mercenary heads together. Apparently this one needed to learn that I didn’t take kindly to insults.

  My sword was at his neck before he could blink. Men revered Alexander for his royal blood, but I still had to prove myself. I didn’t begrudge these Thracians their right to learn who I was the hard way.

  “I have a better idea,” I said, keeping my voice low. “How about I hide this blade in your throat and save the rest of us from having to listen to your flapping tongue. A mealymouthed Thracian mercenary doesn’t get to insult Alexander,” I continued, reveling in his quick transformation from leering bastard to terrorized foot soldier as my sword tip nicked his neck. I leaned in close. “Would you like to take back what you said?”

  Of course, the cowardly ass nodded, fairly pissing himself in the process.

  “Perhaps the kyria . . .” I paused, waiting for her name
.

  “Timoclea,” she provided.

  “Could better explain how she sent the Thracian commander to his death?” I asked. Timoclea’s brown eyes strayed to the well, and a slow smile spread across my face, although I kept the point of my sword cozy with the Thracian’s throat. “Let me guess. . . . Their captain never learned to swim?”

  She lifted her shoulders in an elegant shrug. “The brute killed my slaves and cornered me in the house. . . .” Her voice trailed off, and I could well imagine what spoils the Thracian commander had availed himself of once he had her alone. Her chin jutted in defiance. “When he demanded the silver, coins, and jewels, I told him I’d dumped them into the well when you Macedonians arrived outside the city.”

  “And then you accompanied him here?” I leaned forward so I could see down the well. It was wide and deep, but there was enough sunlight to make out a jumble of paving stones and, beneath them, what appeared to be a man’s leg, pale and fat like a dead trout. I grimaced and glanced back at Timoclea. “I believe you may need to dig another well.”

  “What she needs is a grave,” the first soldier growled.

  Gods, but these Thracians were thick-skulled and dim-witted. I wished I had a second sword to scratch this one’s throat. Where was Apollo with his plague arrows when you needed him?

  Timoclea shrugged. “He leaned too close to the edge to catch a glimpse of my emeralds and pearls.”

  Yet the paving stones atop his body were the work of a crafty matron. No doubt Hades was cursing the arrival of an ugly lout who only ever had a woman when he forced himself upon her. “The gods may yet smile on you, Timoclea of Thebes,” I said, lowering my sword to cut the thongs that bound her wrists. “I take you under my protection, for Alexander himself may wish to meet a woman of such rare courage.”

  The Thracian idiots opened their mouths to protest, but I silenced them with a glare.

  “And my children?” Timoclea asked.

  “The girls too,” I said. The eldest reminded me of a younger version of Thessalonike, although I suspected if that were the case, she’d have helped to push the commander into the well and then celebrated with a plate of Delian honey cakes. “My sincerest apologies for the ill treatment you received. War is a grim business.”

  Timoclea rubbed her wrists and beckoned for her children, nodding toward the angry black plumes billowing into the sky above the rooftops. “You soldiers destroy all you touch.”

  “We’ve acquired the souls of butchers,” I admitted, trying to recall where I’d read that line of poetry. It really was quite good.

  I sheathed my sword as we approached her gate, glancing at the mounds of corpses littering the streets. I swallowed a wave of revulsion. This was no fair fight of soldiers eager for Macedonian blood, but the slaughter of women and children.

  “Close your eyes,” I commanded the girls.

  They looked to their mother, their brown eyes dark with confusion. “Do as he says,” Timoclea ordered.

  They did and I lifted them up, one in each arm. “Don’t look until I tell you to, all right?”

  They nodded and squeezed their eyes tight. Alexander, resplendent in his purple chlamys and gleaming helmet atop Bucephalus, saw us then. Of course, old Ox-Head with his golden horns appeared unperturbed by the slaughter spread before him.

  “Spare only the priests,” I heard Alexander order, his generals scattering like ants to do his bidding. The girls in my arms tensed as I set them down, their backs to the carnage.

  “You can look now,” I said, then saluted.

  Alexander gave a wry smile as his eyes flicked over Timoclea and her girls. “Lovely, but a bit too old and too young for me, Hephaestion. And I already have a mistress.”

  Brilliant and handsome, charismatic, and courageous though he was, Alexander sometimes lacked a rather key trait: tact.

  Ptolemy, mounted beside him, stroked his chin, looking over Timoclea like she was on the slave block. “I’d be happy to take her off your hands.”

  “We travel the world not only to conquer,” I said, ignoring Ptolemy and giving Alexander a pointed look.

  “You are correct,” Alexander answered offhand. “I travel and conquer so the world will never forget my name.”

  “And so you will be remembered as just and fair,” I retorted, even as Thebes writhed around us in its death throes. “Before you stands a matchless Theban treasure.”

  Alexander glanced about the citadel, but he must have determined that the killing, raping, and pillaging could go on without him for a few moments, so he dismounted, keeping Bucephalus’ reins loose in his hand while Ptolemy hovered nearby. “And who are you, kyria, that you have so captured Hephaestion’s attention?”

  Timoclea clasped her hands before her as if welcoming him to a banquet. “I am Timoclea, the sister of Theagenes, who fought the Battle of Chaeronea with your father, Philip, and died there in command for the liberation of Greece. My husband died in that battle as well, leaving me to fend for myself these past three years.”

  “She killed one of your Thracian captains,” I said, sensing Alexander’s growing impatience. “Lured him to her well with promises of buried treasure and pushed him in.”

  Alexander cocked an eyebrow at me. “I assume he deserved it?”

  “He did,” I answered.

  “Rare courage for a woman,” he mused, rubbing his fingernails against the leather of his kilt. Crusted with filth and blood, they were in need of a good soak. War was a dirty business.

  “Reminds me of a certain sister of yours,” I said. “Two actually.”

  Alexander chuckled. “Cynnane has the courage of an Amazon.”

  “And Thessalonike is a little beast. It seems a shame to see such courage put to the sword.”

  “I agree, and I shall reward your bravery.” He nodded to Timoclea. “I grant you and your children your freedom, as a gift to my sisters.”

  Somehow I doubted this Theban’s freedom was a fair trade for Cynnane’s dead husband, but it was too late to save Amyntas. The poor, doomed fool had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, married into the wrong family. Amyntas was lost, but the entire city of Thebes trembled with fear as she waited for the rest of Alexander’s swords to fall.

  “It seems to me,” I said, halting Alexander’s departure, “that other Thebans might possess similar courage. The city is taken and the Sacred Band of Thebes is no more. Perhaps the inhabitants would serve you better alive than rotting in the streets.”

  “Your heart is too tender, Hephaestion,” Alexander said, but his face softened. He surveyed the terra-cotta roofs spread before us, occasional screams making Timoclea’s daughters cower like mice. “I am victorious,” he said. “And thus I can afford to be merciful.” He beckoned to an approaching guard as he remounted Bucephalus. “Cease the slaughter,” he said. “The remainder of the city shall be taken as slaves. Spare the priests and the house of Timoclea.”

  Tears welled in Timoclea’s eyes, the blatant gratitude shining there making me turn away. “Alexander,” I called. “One more thing?”

  “I do have a battle to manage, Hephaestion,” he said, but he smiled at me from atop his horse. “What is it?”

  “Spare the family of Pindar?”

  “You and your precious Pindar.” He sighed, but his eyes sparkled with mirth. “I’ll save them, on one condition.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “That they promise to produce no more bad poetry.”

  “Pindar’s poetry rivals Homer’s and you well know it.”

  “Sacrilege!” Alexander shouted over his shoulder, laughing as he nudged Bucephalus’ ribs and galloped toward the citadel. Ptolemy followed behind him, but not before casting a lingering look at Timoclea, dark as a shadow and just as fast.

  I watched them go, satisfied that I’d done all I could. Alexander was a man of extre
mes, burning bright as the sun over the rest of us mere mortals so that it often fell to me to rein him in, as pleasant a task as curbing Zeus’ temper. I’d been scorched by his changeable moods, but I was pleased enough with today’s outcome to promise myself a cask of my favorite burgundy Lesbos wine before falling onto my bedroll tonight.

  And speaking of my bedroll . . .

  I turned to Timoclea. “Now what shall you do?”

  She rubbed her eyes, the first sign of weakness I’d seen from her. The vulnerability there made me want to cup her delicate cheekbone in my hand.

  “Encourage my city to cooperate with your men.”

  “To send us on our way as soon as possible, you mean.”

  She offered me a wan smile. “Is it not one and the same? You seem a decent man, Hephaestion of Macedon, despite the company you keep.”

  Beneath her ragged hair and ruined attire, there was beauty there, a touch of Aphrodite if the goddess ever found herself past the first flush of youth. After a day of killing and saving Thebes from being only a memory sung in the song of bards, I wouldn’t mind sharing that cask of burgundy wine, and perhaps more, with a woman like Timoclea.

  I gave her the grin that never failed to make kitchen slaves eager to shed their chitons. “I’m so far from decent that I’d offer you more than just temporary protection, Timoclea of Thebes. A woman alone, needing a strong arm to protect her?”

  “And you, a man in need of a woman in his bed?”

  “Well, when you say it like that . . .”

  But Timoclea of Thebes was no kitchen slave, and a piece of me would have been disappointed if she’d giggled and batted her lashes. Instead, she studied me. “And here I believed—as I think all of Greece does—that Alexander held the key to your affections.”

  “Alexander and I learned the pleasures of the flesh together,” I admitted. This was a common practice, although typically it was an older man who would teach his eromenos about love. At seventeen, we had been deemed men, but like Achilles and Patroclus, our affection for each other remained constant even as we discovered the wonders of women as well. Alexander once claimed that only sex and sleep reminded him that he was mortal; add wine and books to that list and my vision of Elysium was complete. “We’re closer than brothers, but we’ve large appetites and neither of us wishes to eat from the same dish night after night.”