The Conqueror's Wife

by Stephanie Thornton

  “All shall be as you command.” Parizad’s head bobbed up and down like a dark-plumed crane searching for insects as he backed from her presence.

  “The three-day rituals for your son were observed at the oasis,” I said. “Darius was honored as the greatest of kings.”

  “Even still, the rituals shall be repeated after the flame ceremony to ensure that all were done correctly,” Sisygambis proclaimed.

  Stateira sniffed at that and blinked several times, but Drypetis’ gaze remained fixated on the porcelain box her grandmother held. The cruelty of it all struck me then, for although Darius had been more cowardly than a whipped dog, it had been two years since his womenfolk had seen him and now they greeted only his bones.

  Yet our reason for meeting here today was twofold. I’d delivered what remained of Darius, but now a new flame had to be lit. White-robed priests moved in like pale vultures, the most decrepit and bent of them each carrying a silver oil lamp.

  “You have known Alexander longer than any of us,” Sisygambis said, her thick-knuckled grasp on the ossuary tightening. “Will you light his flame?”

  I almost retorted that Alexander was fire, but bit back the words as I recognized the glaring message from the gods.

  The fire in the cave.

  The singer Adurnarseh.

  The city of Persepolis.

  The flame I was to light now was only one more of Alexander’s fires. I prayed it was not a blaze intent on death and destruction, but instead a blaze to light his way in darkening times. I prayed to Ahura Mazda and all the other gods as the fire sputtered to life amid the fresh black pitch.

  Sisygambis studied me with iron eyes. “It is the duty of the king to honor his predecessor and as Alexander’s representative, that responsibility falls to you. You must join us in the Tower of Silence for the customary three days and nights to see my son’s soul safe into paradise.”

  Drypetis’ head jerked up as if she’d been whipped, a glimmer of the gorgon that I knew lurking beneath the shell of the grief-stricken daughter. “No,” she started to protest, but I cut her off.

  “I shall join you, if it pleases you,” I said, to which Sisygambis answered, “It does.” She swept past, carrying the bones of her dead son in her arms, while her granddaughters followed in her wake. I willed Drypetis to turn and impale me with one of her witticisms or comical attempts at cursing, but she only glanced behind to skewer me with a glare, trailing a cloud of familiar cassia perfume. My eyes lingered too long on the drape of her robe, the way the material moved over the curve of her backside.

  I knew I had lost my mind then that I would be thinking of sour-mouthed Drypetis in my bed. Or more accurately, pushed up against a wall with her head thrown back in abandon and her lips parted in a moan.

  So it was that I found myself dressed in black Persian robes and immersed in a haze of incense and prayers within Persepolis’ great round Tower of Silence. The barrage of white-masked Zoroastrian priests shook their sanctifying barsom twig bundles to purify our prayers and floated like faceless shades in the underworld. Yet Darius’ silent women moved with purpose, lighting sacred lamps and burning the special sedra shroud to clothe their son and father in paradise, all the while ignoring Drypetis’ drooling four-eyed mutt of a dog now that he’d played his ceremonial role in confirming the king’s death. This tower was larger than the one in Tyre, with four covered offshoot wells surrounding a great circular courtyard. My eyes burned as I snatched at scraps of sleep beneath the stars from dusk to dawn, the daylight hours passing slowly under a sun as cold as a whore’s heart.

  All I had was time to think, and that was the last thing I wanted.

  That final, fateful night I sat with my back to the cold stone walls of one of the well corridors, a mostly full amphora of wine tucked into my side. The winter air had wormed its way into my bones and my empty stomach gnawed hard after three days of fasting. We were allowed wine, but I’d rationed myself only a cup, which was as useful at driving off the cold and hunger as the fruit and water perpetually denied to Tantalus in the dungeons of Tartarus. I nodded off in fits and starts, shivering and hungry, only to wake to the sound of stifled sobs echoing off the walls.

  I pulled my himation closer around myself and waited for the sound to subside, but it continued while the priests kept their vigil around the sacred fire. Stateira and Sisygambis lay swathed in warm bearskins across the way, Stateira’s face relaxed in a peaceful sleep despite the occasional snore from the dowager queen. Drypetis’ dog curled at the foot of their makeshift bed, but his vinegar-mouthed owner was nowhere to be seen.

  Come to think of it, neither was my amphora of wine.

  And still, the sobs echoed.

  I heaved a sigh and stood, stomping my feet to get the blood circulating again as I followed the sound down the nearest well corridor.

  I knew whom I would find at the end of the passage, but it was still a shock to see Drypetis—proud, loudmouthed princess though she was—huddled inside a black silk cloak and shaking with sobs. An oil lamp sputtered next to her, illuminating my missing amphora tucked in her arm and the massive copper cover to the well below, a pit that held the bones and dust of countless souls who had come before us. Drypetis’ veil fell away as she lifted a tear-streaked face, revealing dark hair shorn just below her ears, presumably in a show of mourning for her father. Her gold-flecked eyes widened as she saw me, but I took solace in the fact that she was sworn to silence until the sun rose.

  Still, she reminded me of a caged beast, wild-eyed and savage, akin to one of Pindar’s most famous closing lines.

  Here danger lies.

  The poet was surely right and it would have been easier to take back my wine and leave Drypetis to her storm of tears, but taking the easy path meant that I’d watched a singer immolated, a city torched, and a man tortured. This time I forced myself to take the hard road and sit next to Drypetis, my movements slow and measured. To my shock, she didn’t bolt and run, only shuffled farther from me and tucked her knees tighter beneath her chin.

  Our vows of silence meant I wasn’t allowed to offer her trite words of solace. Instead, my hand hovered near her shorn hair for a moment before I finally dared touch her. She flinched, then relaxed as I stroked the curved line above her ear where hair fused with pale skin, untouched by the sun.

  And then I kissed her.

  She stiffened and I expected her to lunge at me with bared claws and teeth, but instead she clambered closer, pressing her lithe body to mine and knocking over the oil lamp in the process, plunging us into blackness. Her lips were desperate under mine even as she tugged me to my knees, both of us fumbling in the dark.

  Wine. She tasted of sweet, sweet wine and salt from her tears.

  Her persuasive hands tugged at the kamarband of my robe. I recognized her grief—and perhaps the wine too—making her grasp at this most basic act of the living, but even more shocking was the discovery that I wanted her, wanted to bury myself deep within her and forever smell that heady cassia perfume that made me feel like I’d drunk several amphorae of wine.

  Drypetis tumbled like she did everything else, fast and fierce, our robes hastily discarded and her long legs wrapped around me while her nails dug into my backside. I was far from noble, teasing her until she whimpered and taunting her with my lips and fingers. Finally, neither of us could take any more and I felt a moment’s guilt when I pushed into her wetness and past her maidenhead, but she only gasped and clutched my shoulders tighter, her lips devouring mine until she cried out. Afterward, I pulled my discarded cloak over the both of us.

  By Zeus, I enjoyed the feel of her naked body pressed against mine.

  I dozed, a heavier sleep than any I’d experienced in the tower, but woke to the wrinkled face of an old woman, the lines etched around her eyes and mouth chiseled deeper by a flickering oil lamp. The orange haze of dawn lit the corridor behind her, breaki
ng our three days’ vow of silence.

  “Fuck me,” I muttered.

  “It appears my granddaughter already took care of that,” Sisygambis said. “Although I’m surprised it took you both so long.” The dowager’s lips pursed tight even as her eyes laughed at me. Drypetis’ shaggy yellow mongrel sat patiently at her feet, cocking his head before shuffling forward to lick his owner’s sleeping face. Drypetis groaned and Sisygambis nudged her granddaughter with a slippered toe. “Rise and dress before the priests find you.”

  “Mithra’s mace,” Drypetis murmured as she sat up, petting the slobbering dog absentmindedly. Her eyes, which seemed to absorb whatever color she wore—black today although still flecked with gold—slanted at me in question. Then her hands flew to her lips as she looked first at her grandmother’s retreating back and then to me again.

  Ah yes, the shock and shame that came after a night of debauchery. It was a feeling I knew well, although I couldn’t remember ever being the subject of such mortification.

  I scowled and knocked the remainder of the broken seal from the amphora of wine she’d filched from me. The container was almost completely full, meaning that my little gorgon had, in fact, come to me without a fog of alcohol blurring her mind.

  Bugger shame, then.

  I arched an eyebrow at her and took a long draft of the old, sweet-tasting Lesbos vintage instead of grinning as I wished to.

  “Nice hair,” I said, gesturing with the amphora toward her shorn locks. It wasn’t what I’d meant to say, but it seemed a safer topic than anything else that came to mind. I actually liked it short, framing her face in a tumbled mess so she really did look like a gorgon.

  “Shut up,” Drypetis snapped. “I got it caught in a pulley.”

  I barely kept from laughing as she stumbled to her feet and shoved her arms back into her robe so fast that the dog took a step back before settling onto its mangy haunches. Everything Drypetis did was forceful and full of purpose, never delicate or graceful.

  And while I wouldn’t have minded a repeat of last night’s forceful performance, the way she looked ready to spit knives told me she felt otherwise.

  “I’ll be gone soon enough and then you can forget this ever happened.” I sighed, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

  Her startled pause gave me hope. “What?” she asked.

  “I leave today. I’m to rendezvous with Alexander in Sogdiana.”

  “Of course you are,” she snapped. “Will you always come when Alexander crooks his finger at you?”

  I rubbed a knuckle against my ear with an exaggerated wince. “Perhaps. Will your tongue always lash me like a whip?”

  “It’s no less than you deserve,” she said, looking down her nose at me, “from the daughter of the Persian eagle and the one true king. After all, you’re nothing save Alexander’s man-whore.”

  My gorgon had returned, despite the allure of her tumbled hair and the faintest trace of cassia perfume that clung to my skin. Some things were truly too good to last.

  “You’re the one who wrapped her legs around that man-whore last night,” I said. “So what does that make you?” I thrust my arms into the sleeves of my robe and gave it a slight shake before tying the kamarband.

  I’d never had a woman slap me before, but I assumed Drypetis’ assault was as thorough as I could expect, a veritable bolt of lightning across my cheek. Her chest heaved and for a moment I wished I could push her against the wall and kiss her once more.

  And why the hell not?

  So I did, pinning her wrists behind her and exulting in the way her lips softened against mine even as she struggled, her breasts pushing against my chest.

  I released her then and leaned back against the cold wall, my arms crossed and a smug smile on my face as her expression contorted in rage. Her hands curled into fists as the fire from her slap flared fast across my face. “I hope a Bactrian arrow finds its way into your miserable heart,” she threw over her shoulder before whistling for her dog and storming off.

  And as I watched her stalk down the corridor like an angry cloud, there was only one thing I could do, even though I knew it would fan the flames of her fury even more.

  I laughed, a great, hearty laugh, feeling fully alive for the first time in months.

  CHAPTER 16

  327 BCE

  Sogdiana, Persia

  Roxana

  The sharp winds yanked my hair from my veil and I mused anew how my body might shatter on the rocks below the citadel’s precipice. Some months ago I had almost fulfilled the daydream, freshly broken as I’d been by the lonely soldiers who knew Bessus no longer protected me. I’d even invoked my father’s name, but Ariamazes, our new commander, who had ogled my breasts when meeting with Bessus, had only laughed at my suggestion that Oxyartes would avenge my honor.

  “Oxyartes of Balkh?” he sputtered. “A few coins would have him singing a different song. After all, he allowed you to whore for Bessus, didn’t he?”

  Ariamazes had been the first, but he was a fair and popular general who allowed his men their turns as well. I’d tried to fight in the beginning; I’d slapped one soldier, spat at another, and kneed a third in his stones. I screamed that I wasn’t a common camp follower looking to hike her skirts up for any man with a hard shaft between his legs, but it didn’t matter.

  I’d had two choices after that night: to fling myself from the rock walls or to use my one gift—my beauty—to shape my life into something I wanted.

  Now I no longer fought Ariamazes and his men, but instead wheedled from them bags of dried dates, wine, and the rings and silk scarves they’d been given by wives and lovers back home, in return for my pleasuring them as Bagoas had taught me. I’d become the Whore of Sogdian Rock, but I’d been a whore since I first spread my legs for Bessus, so what did it matter?

  I took solace in the knowledge that Bessus’ first two wives had been killed in Alexander’s burning of Persepolis. The last remained here, still fat and jowly but more often ignored now that she’d never wear the queen’s diadem.

  I knew this wretched wasteland in every season, its scalding summer heat and screaming winter blizzards, the way the stark cliffs below us changed from wheat gold in the spring to mud brown as the shadows of the tamarisk shrubs stretched longer until finally snow blanketed the mountain peaks. I knew that the long-nosed niece of Ariamazes tumbled a flat-faced soldier behind the henhouses each night. I also knew that we received only sporadic provisions now that the stream of traveling merchants had decided the promise of bored, rich widows wasn’t worth confronting the might of Alexander’s army. Sogdian Rock had grain stockpiles to last two years, but the earth of the citadel’s root gardens had grown barren with winter’s snows, the clumps of dirt frozen harder than any paving stone.

  The sheep and goats grew thinner, as did the rest of us, but a tentative spring had finally arrived, bringing with it the promise of easier living and warmer weather. And an army bent on our destruction.

  Alexander had finally come to Sogdian Rock.

  Greek mercenaries and Macedonians filled the plain below the fortress in a black sea of death. The path upward had been destroyed after we’d received word of Bessus’ execution, news that had decimated my dreams of being queen even as it freed me from having to fake smiles and moans of false pleasure for the fat bastard who had sentenced my brother to die. To keep our stronghold impenetrable, soldiers had bludgeoned the bottom with hammers and hacksaws, prying loose the rocks of the narrow ledge that led into the clouds. It was a dangerous, backbreaking job and several of the men plummeted to their deaths when they lost their footing.

  I bade them good riddance, especially the one who had liked to wrap my hair into a rope as he rode me from behind. I hoped the maggots below enjoyed feasting on his miserable carcass.

  Now the fortress was truly impregnable, a prison that guaranteed survival to those
of us inside.

  I stood on the ramparts surrounded by jeering soldiers and curious women, the mothers and young children having retreated to the center of the fortress at the approach of the cunning Macedonian and his troops. The tops of our walls were just out of reach of their archers and too tall for any ramparts to be built, so Alexander and his Companions stood at the base of what had once been the ledge leading to the top, wearing their elaborate helmets and red woolen winter capes that fluttered in the wind. My fists tightened as I realized that one of them was likely Hephaestion, the same demon who had tortured Bessus with flies and honey.

  I recalled Bessus’ boast that he’d dress me in a net of gold and gems and have me on the floor of Persepolis’ treasury, that we’d make love in each of Darius’ beds in every one of his palaces.

  He was a foolish, boastful, worthless man, just as Darius had been before him. Whoever had thought to give men swords and put crowns on their heads must have had raw eggs for brains.

  But now the crowd fell silent as another would-be king shouted up at us.

  “People of Sogdian Rock,” Alexander yelled. Even from this vantage, I could see that he was shorter than most of the Companions who flanked him, but his voice boomed like a god’s. “It is my wish to see you saved from the slaughter that has met so many of your countrymen.”

  “Slaughter at your hands,” Ariamazes shouted down. Before his men had rendered our rock path impassable, our bold commander had plagued Alexander by leading revolts throughout Sogdiana. “Take your men and march back from where you came. Then there shall be no further Persian blood spilled, Alexander of Macedon.”

  “I am your King of Kings now,” Alexander said. “Crowned in Babylon and anointed by your priests and gods.”

  “And yet you put Persepolis to the torch, even after you were crowned,” Ariamazes said. “Proof indeed that you are no true king.”

  “You may return unmolested to your homes if you surrender this citadel,” Alexander answered. His voice had taken on a hard edge; apparently he didn’t care for being accused of false kingship. “You have until dusk to give me your answer.”