The Conqueror's Wife

by Stephanie Thornton

  I hope you continue to read your Homer—you shall marry one day and I shall require that your groom be well versed in all the poet’s great works. Any man who cannot recite The Song of Ilium shall find himself unworthy of my sister’s hand.

  Your dutiful brother, Alexander

  And he’d scribbled an afterthought beneath his flourish of a signature. . . .

  Eat an extra helping of beef at your next meal and think of me. I fear to repeat the acts of Artaxerxes, when he offended the Egyptians’ sensibilities by roasting their sacred Apis bull for a feast. Thus, I’ve forbidden any of my Companions to eat beef while we travel along the Nile.

  “What does it say?” Hephaestion’s eyes were hooded, but I’d felt him watching me while I read.

  “That he pines for beef,” I answered, rolling my eyes. I’d have gladly sacrificed all the bulls in the world if it meant I could witness the fresh temples of Alexandria being built or see the leopard-bedecked priests performing their dedication rituals.

  “Your brother suffers mightily for his ambitions,” Hephaestion said, chuckling. “I told him to let the Egyptians eat donkey, but he claimed that would be an affront to his new father, Ammon.”

  “His new father?”

  Hephaestion nodded, rising and going to the window that looked out over the hill where Dionysus’ Mysteries had taken place. “He uses his adoptions to collect mothers and fathers like trinkets now, the better to solidify his hold on various territories. Widowed Queen Ada of Caria is his latest mother, and the god Ammon his newest sire.”

  “I doubt Olympias will approve,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Olympias is a practical woman. Ada honored Alexander by renaming her capital after him, and the hold of my ship contains a crate of gold crowns from her, a gift from Alexander to Olympias.”

  “The world shall grow weary of every city being named Alexandria.”

  “Perhaps.” Hephaestion laughed. “Yet I fear Alexander never will.” He leaned forward and dropped a kiss atop my head as if I were still a girl with scraped knees. I glanced down at my hands, wincing at the scabs from my falls last night. “I’ll post a guard outside to let you sleep before the banquet tonight,” he said. “Antipater is hosting and his son Cassander is freshly returned from Athens, so it promises to be a staid and very long affair.”

  I fell back on my pillow with a groan.

  Whereas Alexander and Hephaestion had left Aristotle’s Mieza school here in Macedon and marched off to conquer the world, Cassander was their junior by six years and had followed the famed scholar to Athens, where he’d continued to teach at the Lyceum. I cared little for an insufferable boor, who would likely spout his tutor’s maxims while extolling the virtues of his father’s cheese-stuffed cuttlefish, fried Egyptian goose eggs, and fine wines.

  “I know,” Hephaestion said. “I tried to beg off, but Olympias made me promise to stay so she might arrange for letters and gifts for Alexander.”

  I sat up again, too fast from the way my head clanged. “When will you leave?”

  “Eager to get rid of me so soon, eh? We sail in two days, if the winds remain favorable. I only stopped here to deliver Alexander’s gifts—”

  I lurched forward to seize his hand, swallowing hard as the ground swayed beneath me as I clambered to my knees beside his chair. “Take me with you and train me.”

  For the first time I could recall, Hephaestion seemed speechless.

  “Please,” I babbled, sounding desperate even to my own ears. “I’ll do anything you ask, shovel your horse’s stall, fetch your wine, polish your greaves. Please, please, please. I can’t breathe here, not under Olympias’ shadow. I want to see things and to fight like I did in the revels last night.” I winced at the fresh pain in my temples. “Only without the wine.”

  Hephaestion stared at me, my hand like a manacle around his thick wrist. “It isn’t safe, Thessalonike, especially not for women.”

  “There are women with the army,” I corrected him. “Alexander has Barsine.”

  “Your brother is worshipped as a god now. He can snap his fingers and have whatever he wants, but that’s not how the world works for the rest of us mortals.”

  I crossed my arms, undaunted. “Darius brought his family with him on campaign, even his elderly mother.”

  Hephaestion threw his hands up. “And they were captured in battle!”

  “I’d never be captured,” I scoffed.

  “Perhaps not. But you’d leave Arrhidaeus here? Alone?”

  I sat back on my heels. I hadn’t thought of Arrhidaeus. Olympias hadn’t threatened him since the night of Eurydice’s death, but I certainly couldn’t leave him with her. “He could come to Persia as my bodyguard.”

  Yet even as I said it, I knew my half brother would never survive a campaign, leaving the home he knew to face iron and blood.

  “Arrhidaeus is no soldier,” Hephaestion said sadly. “His gifts lie elsewhere, in his loyalty to you.”

  “I’m Alexander’s sister; that alone would protect me.”

  “I’d wager Darius’ women thought the same, before the Battle of Issus. His youngest daughter, Drypetis, reminds me of you.”

  “Then she must be beautiful as Aphrodite, intelligent as Athena, and courageous as Artemis,” I said, recalling Hephaestion’s words to me when he’d first left to march off with Alexander.

  “Actually,” he said with no small dose of exasperation, “Drypetis is plainer than mud and more obstinate than a starving pig at a trough.”

  I glared at him. “Please, Hephaestion. I’m begging you.”

  His face softened and he touched my cheek as a knock came at the door. “I’m sorry, little Nike, but I can’t. It’s too dangerous, especially for a girl.”

  Meaning he might have taken me if I possessed a sword between my legs instead of a stupid flower.

  “Get out!” I yelled. My pillow missed Hephaestion and hit the wall in an explosion of goose feathers.

  “As you wish.” Hephaestion stood and swiped a feather from the air, twirling it between his fingers. “Although I’d have thought you’d have better aim after trying to persuade me to take you into the thick of battle.”

  I grabbed the closest thing I could find and hurled it at the door just as Hephaestion closed it. Unfortunately, that resulted only in a dull thud and my half-blind snake slithering from its basket as I screamed in frustration, the walls of my chamber closing in around me.

  Freedom was an impossible dream, yet one I couldn’t quite shake. And if Hephaestion wouldn’t help me—I cursed his name under my breath—then I’d find another way to escape Olympias and these palace walls.

  On my own.

  • • •

  The banquet made me want to slit my wrists, or, better yet, Hephaestion’s throat.

  Being a guest of honor, he was seated alongside our family beneath the open oculus of the formal hall, next to Cassander and his father. Upon his arrival, I edged as far away from him as I could without falling off my chair. Olympias cocked an eyebrow as slaves served us platters of sow’s udder stuffed with leeks and cumin, milk-fed snails drowned in a pepper sauce, and braised pigeon from the palace’s domed dovecotes. “Is there a spider on your chair?” she asked.

  “Not at all,” I said. “Hephaestion doesn’t care for the presence of girls.”

  There were several sniggers at that from eavesdroppers, but Hephaestion ignored them.

  “He does like girls,” Arrhidaeus said. “He was kissing one in the courtyard.”

  Hephaestion flashed a smile and shrugged. “I appreciate beauty in all its forms. Especially those forms that don’t hurl things at my head.”

  And with that, he had the audacity to give me his shoulder to speak to Olympias. I listened with my ears buzzing as he delivered several letters from Alexander, and they discussed Alexander’s adoption of the god
Ammon as his father.

  Yet I had a plan. I might still get to follow Alexander, to see Egypt and Persia and beyond. . . .

  “They claim that Zeus visited me so I might conceive Alexander, that my womb was sealed with the mark of a lion that night,” Olympias said, lifting her goblet, so the torchlight caught on the gold bracelet at her wrist, illuminating the serpent insignia there. She wore a sardonyx cameo at her throat, its raised relief depicting her regal profile behind Alexander in his plumed battle helmet. “Ammon is Egypt’s name for Zeus, so of course he should claim him as his true father.”

  “Zeus should be worshipped in his true form,” came the voice from my other side. “Ammon, Ahura Mazda, and the like are the false gods of barbaroi who speak with forked and twisted tongues.”

  Antipater’s son Cassander was far from handsome, in fact downright ugly in this room of polished nobility, his face too harsh and his coloring darker even than Hephaestion’s, but I showered my most golden smile upon him.

  “And now that you’ve finished your studies with Aristotle,” I said to him, “will you be joining my glorious brother in his campaigns in Persia? Perhaps see those barbarians for yourself?”

  Cassander stared at me as if I’d started jabbering in Egyptian, his black eyebrows drawn together like a monstrous caterpillar. “Fortunately, no.”

  I waited for him to elaborate, but I may as well have ceased to exist.

  “Pella must seem dull after the recent excitement in Athens,” I prodded.

  He sighed and grudgingly turned his attention back to me while the others discussed Alexander’s progress in Egypt. “So says the sister of the world’s conqueror. You possess the youthful ignorance of the young. Athens narrowly escaped her own destruction by signing Hephaestion’s treaty. I prefer my studies to being slaughtered on the streets in the name of freedom.”

  Insulted for my gender and my age today. It was enough to make me want to throw snakes at him too.

  “You’re only a few years older than me,” I said, strumming angry fingers along the base of my goblet, and calculating whether it would be worth hurling the contents into Cassander’s pious, big-nosed face.

  “I’m eighteen,” he said. “And I wasn’t careening about half-dressed in the moonlight last night. Were those really snakes crawling up your arms?”

  “You were at the Mysteries last night?” I winced at his terse nod.

  “Hephaestion’s ship docked next to mine and he insisted that we witness the foul ritual.” His eyes flicked to Olympias, but she was deep in discussion with Hephaestion and therefore wouldn’t bite off his head for slandering her beloved celebration. “I hope you thanked him for carrying you to your chambers after you passed out from overindulgence. Otherwise you’d have found your virtue stolen by some drunken sot come morning. If you still possess any virtue, that is.”

  So that was how I’d gotten into bed. Still, I’d let scorpions devour my tongue before I thanked Hephaestion.

  I rearranged the folds of my peplos, feeling my ears flare red even as I wished I could attack Cassander with my fists as I had the maenad last night. But it didn’t matter, for I’d soon be sailing away from Pella. Cassander could rot here with his father for all I cared.

  The rest of the banquet passed so slowly that I suspected Apollo might be delaying the sun’s descent. I listened with feigned disinterest as Hephaestion spoke with Olympias of his plans to leave in two days’ time, before turning to comment to Arrhidaeus on the quality of trout in Pella’s streams.

  I watched my brother lick the butter from his fingers, then blow his shaggy hair away from his eyes and give me a crooked smile. If only I could be more like him, so content within the security of these walls and the never-changing vista of Pella’s hills and harbor.

  I couldn’t tell him what I planned without fear of him slipping the secret to Olympias, Hephaestion, or even a passing slave. And there was still much to do.

  I rose, swaying on my feet. The conversation at our table stopped and Olympias lifted an elegant brow, giving me permission to speak.

  “I’m overweary after last night’s exertions—” I avoided looking at Cassander, feeling his derisive scowl at my back. “May I retire early?”

  “You may,” Olympias answered. “Rest well.”

  I left behind the chatter and warmth of the banquet hall, and padded softly down the silent corridors to my own chambers. An oil lamp staved off the darkness and illuminated the blue swirls of plaster waves and the motionless gray dolphins painted on my walls. A slave had arranged a vase of fragrant crocus blossoms on my table, and my bed waited for one of the last nights I would sleep there, its sheets freshly pressed despite my late rising.

  In two days’ time, I’d leave all this behind.

  I opened a polished olive-wood chest that contained the majority of my chitons and removed the plainest one of sturdy cotton and a pair of unadorned leather sandals. I’d take little else, only Alexander’s copy of The Song of Ilium and a cloak to hide my face.

  And my snake.

  I set aside the top of her woven basket and let her slither out, her unseeing old eyes still inquisitive as she stared at me. It pained me to think of leaving behind my orange cat and spotted nanny goat, but they weren’t easily packed and hidden away. Especially not the cat, who howled if he’d gone without food for more than a quarter hour. “You need a name, and I think Aristomache fits you well,” I murmured to my snake. Aristo meant “best” and mache was “battle.”

  “My father named me for a battle, and together you and I will see this war my brother fights.”

  She cocked her head and I replaced her in the basket, closing the lid. I didn’t mean to sleep, but my excuse of weariness from Dionysus’ revelries must have been close to the mark, for soon I was lifting my head from the table and wiping the drool from my chin. I squinted through bleary eyes to see sunlight streaming through the shutters, setting the dust motes aflame. Tonight I’d sneak away with Arrhidaeus and board Hephaestion’s ship. We’d hide below for at least three days—uncomfortable, but manageable—which meant I’d need to filch food from the kitchens today. Bread, hard cheese, and an amphora of wine . . .

  “So, was Hephaestion as good at tangling as they say?” A girl slave with drab brown hair giggled and entered my room, flanked by two ebony-haired twins sent from Thebes after my brother had razed their city. The first carried a tray of apricots, goat cheese, and bread for my morning meal.

  “Even better,” one of the twins whispered back.

  “We didn’t sleep all night,” the other twin said, pretending to hide a coy smile behind her hands. “It’s no wonder Alexander keeps him close.”

  All three jumped nearly out of their skin as I stumbled to my feet.

  “How long has the sun been up?” I demanded.

  The closest girl, one of the dim-witted twins, ducked her head in obeisance. “It’s the second hour past sunrise,” she said.

  “Where is Olympias?” I asked.

  “I believe she’s at the shrine of Dionysus.”

  Good. The last thing I needed was Olympias figuring out that I was up to something. “And Hephaestion? I need to speak with him.”

  To thank him for rescuing me from being trampled at the Mysteries, and to throw him off the scent of what I planned.

  “Hephaestion’s ship set sail before sunrise.”

  I whirled on her. “What?”

  “He asked me to deliver this to you,” one of the twins said, offering a rolled parchment bound with a leather thong.

  I gestured for them to leave, then tore open Hephaestion’s letter. I recognized the lazy slant of his handwriting, the inky whispers of the stylus where he couldn’t be bothered to lift it fully from the paper from one letter to the next. The parchment quivered as I clenched its edges between my trembling hands.

  Dearest Little Nike,

&nb
sp; I expect that you’re still cursing my name and inventing creative ways to ensure my death. (All I ask is that you make it quick, no lingering and painful ends where I humiliate myself by blubbering for Hades to claim me.)

  Have no doubt, Little Victory, that you shall not be locked in Pella forever. My conscience is heavy with many things in this life—we both know I’ve a terrible fondness for drinking fine wine, indulging in mawkish poetry, and I am easily distracted by the curve of a beautiful woman’s back or the breadth of a man’s shoulders—but I shall sleep easy knowing you are far from the battlefield. I have no surviving siblings of my own blood, but you and Alexander are my sister and brother, and I could never forgive myself if anything happened to you. Instead of cursing me to Hades and back (which I know you will anyway), I suggest you seek out Cynnane to help you pass the time. Your half sister will likely bore you beyond tears with her claim of killing the Illyrian queen and will undoubtedly gloat that she once managed to disarm me. (She first got me drunk with a krater of wine, and thus, her claim is an idle boast.) Between sparring with a would-be Amazon and your communes with Dionysus, you’ll find some small measure of entertainment, I expect.

  I have no doubt that you will continue scheming, and in fact, I welcome word of your future exploits. Just know that I adore you too much to be the instrument of your death.

  Your brother,

  Hephaestion, son of Amyntor

  I’m quite proud to say that I didn’t scream then or dissolve into tears. Instead, I carried Hephaestion’s letter and walked calmly to my balcony, rimmed by cypress trees that allowed me to glimpse slivers of tantalizing sea waves through their swaying branches. Zephyr’s west wind tugged at the hem of my rumpled peplos and teased my tangled hair about my face.

  Then I tore the paper into tiny pieces and sent Hephaestion’s words flying on a gust of wind. A few scraps fell to the garden below, the same one where Olympias had begun my initiation only two nights ago, but others spun in the air, lifted up, and were carried toward the sea.