The Conqueror's Wife

by Stephanie Thornton

  “Is it true that you climbed to the fortress using only tent pegs and canvas?” I asked, letting my fingertips brush his arm. It’s a well-known truth that every man enjoys having his pride cosseted, and Alexander’s pride was surely larger than most. I almost mentioned that the Persian soldiers must have pissed themselves to see him standing at the precipice come dawn, but bit my tongue so he didn’t think me crass. “The soldiers here were fools to believe themselves invincible against a son of Zeus,” I added.

  “A mistake other men have made before them.”

  I smiled slowly, tilting my head so his eyes could follow the length of my long neck. “And so you took the fortress without spilling a single drop of Persian blood. An impressive feat.”

  I neglected mentioning the thirty Greeks who had plunged to their deaths. Surely that was a small price to pay for a man like Alexander.

  “And now I plan to enjoy the fruits of my cunning,” he said.

  “I’m sure you do,” I purred, but I didn’t get a chance to ask what that entailed, as the soldier I now knew to be Hephaestion arrived with a wicker basket in his arms. I glowered at him as he stopped before Alexander, bowing with his fist over his heart.

  “My apologies for the interruption,” he said, braving Alexander’s black glare. “But this arrived from the wife of Ariamazes. We rigged a pulley and winched it up the cliff so you might have it tonight.” He leaned forward, his dark brows drawn together. “You may lose your appetite after you view its contents.”

  Alexander’s hand hesitated on the basket, yet I could see the curiosity deep in his eyes as he glanced around the room, ending with me.

  “Open it,” I urged him.

  “You’re a curious one,” he said.

  “Always,” I taunted him with a dangerous smile, then wished I hadn’t when the soldier revealed the basket’s contents.

  Nestled in a bed of hay was a man’s head, freshly severed from its body, its eyes open and jaw gone slack to reveal two lines of perfect white teeth.

  Teeth that had grazed my ear and nipped at my breasts as I was bent over the bed in this very room.

  Ariamazes’ teeth.

  “A rather foul thing to serve at a banquet,” I murmured as I fanned myself with my hand, trying to control the urge to vomit as Alexander withdrew a note from inside the basket. I’d never learned to read, so the scribbled characters meant nothing to my eyes, but Hephaestion stood and read over Alexander’s shoulder.

  “A gift from Ariamazes’ wife,” he said. “And an offer of peace.”

  I drank a hasty gulp of wine, then laughed into the back of my hand, masking the chortle as if I’d choked on my drink. The old lech had ogled my breasts and thought nothing of whoring me out to his men, but now he’d met this grisly end despite his cowardly escape. And at the hands of his wife!

  “Ariamazes’ wife is a wise woman,” Alexander said, beckoning for a servant to take the befouled basket away. “For her husband’s head is more valuable than gold.”

  “The rest of these godforsaken rocks will fall without Ariamazes to lead them, for they’re all held by incompetent fools,” Hephaestion said.

  Alexander nodded and grinned like a child with a honey roll. “Thus clearing our way to India so I might rule from one end of the earth to the other,” he said as if dazed, then turned to the messenger. “Send Ariamazes’ wife a message of my deep appreciation.” He removed the golden lion brooch from his shoulder and tossed it to the messenger. “This should more than cover her disquiet at her sudden widowhood.”

  I scarcely stopped myself from gaping as he swept from the dais with a flourish of his purple cloak, taking with him the spicy aroma of incense stolen from some Persian altar to Ahura Mazda.

  And leaving me like a child’s forgotten plaything.

  I must have stared too long, for it was Hephaestion’s low chuckle that shook me from my shock at Alexander’s abrupt departure. “Don’t be disappointed. Alexander has a penchant for all things shiny and bright. The allure of India’s riches just happens to sparkle brighter than you at this moment.”

  “Leave me,” I commanded, for I doubted whether I could mask my disappointment, or my hatred for this man.

  But he didn’t obey, and had the audacity to assume Alexander’s chair and drain the remainder of his wine. “Rather demanding for a captive of Sogdian Rock, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “I’m no captive,” I said, nearly knocking over my chair in my haste to stand and depart. Ariamazes’ rotting head had squandered tonight’s opportunity with Alexander, and now I had to remaneuver to arrange another encounter with the powerful Macedonian. “I am Roxana of Balkh.”

  “Roxana of Balkh?” Hephaestion’s brow furrowed. “Daughter of Oxyartes of Balkh?”

  I swept past him, unwilling to waste one further breath on this man, but his hand clamped down on my wrist.

  “I have in my possession something you’ll want to see.” He smiled, more snarl than grin. “Follow me.”

  And there was nothing I could do, save act as he commanded.

  • • •

  “I thought you were dead,” I sobbed into my brother’s chest, breathing in the scent of life and herbs that had always clung to him. I’d hurled myself into his arms the moment my eyes had adjusted to the dimness of Hephaestion’s lamplit chambers, screeching with wild joy once I’d realized it was truly my brother I beheld and not some trickster spirit.

  Parizad hugged me tight, but not tight enough, for I wanted to cling to him as if a thunderstorm roiled overhead and never let go. “But I’m not dead,” he murmured.

  “I should kill you for all you did,” I said around my hiccups, “spewing treason after I’d weaseled a position for you from Bessus.”

  His hand in my hair pressed me closer to him and I could taste the salt of his tears mingled with mine. “Everything happened as the gods willed it, Roxana.”

  At that, I shoved him away and grabbed the first thing I could find. The silver urn missed him and collided with the stone wall, then crashed to the floor like a lone clap of thunder. I searched for something that might shatter, but unfortunately, Hephaestion didn’t have any alabaster vases or glazed pottery available, only books.

  Cedar chests and wooden boxes full of books.

  I grabbed one in each hand and hurled them at my brother. One broke and its yellowing pages littered the ground, the scrawled figures on their pages indecipherable to my eyes. Suddenly two strong arms salted with black hairs picked me off my feet and held me so my toes dangled off the ground.

  “I’d forgive your denting the urn or even your own head, Roxana of Balkh,” Hephaestion growled in my ear as I tried to squirm from his grasp, “but I didn’t have my favorite volumes of Pindar winched up to this godforsaken fortress only to have you destroy them. Make peace with your brother and leave my copies of Ovid and Homer out of your quarrel.”

  I gave a tight nod, breathing a sigh of relief as my feet touched stone again.

  “I’ll leave you two to get reacquainted.” Hephaestion spoke over my shoulder to my scowling brother. “Bind her wrists if she so much as breathes on my books again.”

  “I shall protect them with my life,” Parizad said, the slow grin I’d once loved tugging on his lips. Then he lifted up on tiptoes and kissed Hephaestion, his fingers splayed over the cheeks of Bessus’ murderer in a display of passion.

  Stunned, I could do nothing save stare, struck dumb and blind.

  My brother was alive. And he was a catamite. Hephaestion’s catamite.

  “Thank you,” he whispered to Hephaestion, who gave only a tight smile in answer.

  The door closed behind my brother’s lover, making the oil lamps flicker and the shadows on Parizad’s face dance. Neither of us spoke for a moment.

  “You died,” I said in a small voice, “and then I was chained to this foul rock and Bessu
s was executed.”

  I wanted to tell him about Bagoas and all the soldiers, and our father, or lack thereof, but didn’t trust myself to speak further without turning into a sniveling mess.

  Parizad cupped my face with his hand. “Have you been mistreated?”

  I thought of Ariamazes and the other soldiers and my chin wobbled. “I needed you here,” I whispered.

  My brother gathered me in his arms again. “You need no one, Roxana; you only imagine that you do. The rest of us . . .” His voice trailed off and he glanced at the door, toward Hephaestion.

  I pulled away. “It seems I need play the whore no longer, for you do it instead.”

  Parizad didn’t bother to deny it, only grinned. “Are you jealous?”

  “Of your bedding that dark oaf?” I scoffed, trailing my finger over a crate of books. They seemed worthless objects to haul over mountains and deserts. “When he killed Bessus and sentenced me to—”

  Parizad shrugged, interrupting me. “Bessus committed regicide and Hephaestion only acted on Alexander’s orders. I’ve often spoken of you to him.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “That my sister is the most beautiful woman in all of Persia.”

  “You must help me, brother,” I said. “I won’t return to Balkh and I can’t stay here.”

  “I’ll do what I can.” He chucked me under the chin. “You should rest now and we can catch up more in the morning.”

  “Can’t I stay with you?”

  But I knew the answer even before he gestured to Hephaestion’s crates of books, his bed. “My place is here.” He bent and removed a copper dagger from one of Hephaestion’s chests. “But take this. In case you and your lovely eyes have captured the attention of Alexander’s soldiers.”

  My fingers closed around the cold metal. I’d never held a blade before, not one made with the intent of ending a man’s life. This simple weapon meant that I’d no longer be the Whore of Sogdian Rock.

  “All will be well,” Parizad said. “It always is, in the end.”

  “I love you, brother,” I whispered.

  “And I love you.”

  I tucked the dagger into my girdle and pulled my cloak closer as I ducked into the night air and retraced my steps toward to the squat little room that Bagoas and I shared. I hadn’t gone far when I heard male voices raised in argument.

  “The men dislike these Persians and even your new affectations. Now you want to further upset your army by taking a Persian wife. You want to disappoint the same loyal soldiers who have followed you for almost ten years all the way from Macedon?”

  Of course I stopped to listen, clinging to the shadows as I recognized Hephaestion’s voice. Persian wife?

  “You’re wrong. The men will go where I lead.”

  Alexander.

  “This is unnecessary,” Hephaestion continued, the frustration tightening his voice. “I’ve quashed plenty of angry grumbles regarding your thirty thousand captives sent to train in Susa, green boys to fill your future ranks, and you’ve already ordered the older and infirm soldiers back at the Oxus to sire children with their Persian mistresses to fill the future army.”

  My skin prickled. I’d heard the stories of survivors of Alexander’s sieges being rounded up, the women given as slave-mistresses to the soldiers. Was that what Alexander was planning here at Sogdian Rock? Were we women the treasure he sought to distribute to his slavering men?

  I’d cut off their shafts with Parizad’s knife before I let them have me like a common whore again.

  “The gods smile upon me and all my ventures,” Alexander answered. “I must marry and have an heir. A Persian queen at my side will garner the support of the Bactrians and the rest of these far-flung Persians. There remain only a scattering of rock fortresses to defeat until Sogdiana is secure. From there, the path to India shall be wide-open.”

  Marry.

  Alexander planned to wed a Persian and make her queen, but I was no queen, only the Whore of Sogdian Rock. And Alexander wasn’t likely to take me as his mistress if he’d just taken a wife.

  Piss and shit.

  Just like that, all my hopes had been dashed. Again.

  I swallowed a cry of outrage as Hephaestion cleared his throat in the dark. “Surely you could choose a different woman, Alexander. You don’t have to marry a whore to sink your shaft into her.”

  “She’s noble,” Alexander said, his voice taut. “And she’s the woman I’ve chosen. The men will accept her because I tell them to.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Hephaestion said, his voice stretched just as thin. “For your sake, and theirs.”

  Footsteps came my way and on instinct I ducked into a dark doorway, holding my breath until they passed.

  I recalled the way Alexander’s eyes had burned for me at the banquet, for I knew of only one woman here who fit the description of a noble Persian whore.

  Surely I was somehow wrong, for never in my wildest fantasies had I imagined that Alexander would ever marry someone like me: the grasping bastard daughter of Oxyartes of Balkh, discarded mistress of a traitor king, and foulmouthed whore to half the Persian forces of Sogdian Rock.

  Still, a desperate hope blossomed in my chest and I nearly laughed into the night, hurrying on my way with my heart thudding in my ears.

  • • •

  I’d tucked Parizad’s knife under my mattress and had barely lain down next to a sleeping Bagoas, my mind churning as I stared into the dark, when someone pounded at our weathered wooden door. It wasn’t the first time a drunken soldier had come carousing, but it was the first time I had a weapon to stop him.

  “Go away,” I yelled, clutching my blanket to my breasts as my fingers curled around Parizad’s knife.

  “No chance of that,” Hephaestion bellowed from the other side. “Open the door or I swear I’ll break it down.”

  And he would. Probably with his head.

  I nodded to Bagoas and wrapped the blanket tighter around me. The door opened to reveal a scowling Hephaestion, with Parizad behind him looking like he’d just been given a king’s palace.

  “Get up,” Hephaestion grunted. He opened my wooden chest, grimaced, and let the lid drop as he glanced at Bagoas, who was cowering in the shadows. “You’re going to the shrine of Ahura Mazda, so have your eunuch drape you in your finest fripperies.”

  “Why?”

  I suspected I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear him say the words.

  Hephaestion whirled on me, impatience rank in his expression. “Because, Roxana of Balkh, you’re getting married.”

  “To who?” I asked, as sweetly as I could manage even as I shivered with excitement.

  “To Alexander,” he roared. “Now get dressed before I truss you like a pig and drag you there myself!”

  He turned and stormed from the room, but my brother’s exuberant grin matched my own as the door slammed shut.

  And I cackled with glee then, great chortles of laughter that threatened never to end, knowing that my most wild dream was about to come true.

  CHAPTER 17

  326 BCE

  Punjab, India

  Hephaestion

  Alexander had informed me upon discovering Barsine’s pregnancy that he couldn’t marry his Persian whore, but that was only a convenient shadow of the truth. What he really meant was that he didn’t wish to wed a Persian harlot that he’d already bedded and whose pretty face he’d grown accustomed to. However, now the real truth was revealed: Alexander was willing, if not eager, to bind himself to a different Persian whore who simpered with practiced ease.

  He’d lost his head over this one, for Roxana had him twisted tightly around her perfectly manicured little finger. Oblivious to his men’s blatant stares, Alexander leaned down from his horse to kiss her in her ebony traveling sedan, a passionate embrace with wander
ing hands and devouring lips better suited to their wedding bed—which they hadn’t left for days, until I’d finally dared to barge into Ariamazes’ former chambers and remind Alexander that he had a kingdom to run and another to conquer, if he could rouse himself from Roxana’s sweet thighs and luscious lips.

  He had, but only barely.

  And yet I knew Alexander, and knew that this infatuation would soon burn itself out, leaving behind the sorry truth that he’d chosen his bride with his prick instead of his head, saddling himself with a harlot instead of a better-born and better-bred Persian princess, a woman like Darius’ daughter Stateira.

  Alexander claimed his marriage to Roxana was a political alliance to sway the remainder of the Persian commanders to his side and to give him an heir, but there was no denying Roxana’s sloe-eyed beauty, her high cheekbones and pelt of glossy black hair. The swell of her breasts, the lush curve of her lips, and the sweet spikenard perfume that heralded her every movement would have stirred any man’s blood, be he eight or eighty.

  And Alexander was no child or old mossback, but a hot-blooded man.

  There were the rumors too that Roxana was well trained in the art of pleasuring a man after her time spent as Bessus’ unofficial mistress. Only Alexander could confirm that bit of gossip—although I could guess the truth at the way he could scarcely keep his hands off her—and for that I felt a twinge of envy, quickly quashed as I had Parizad and any number of camp women to entertain me this night and all the others to come.

  Since Persepolis and the fires, I’d been like a starving man grasping at crumbs. All save one encounter in a darkened tomb . . .

  I smiled at the remembrance, but I’d have been half-dead not to feel jealous that crass Roxana of Balkh had managed to ensnare my golden Alexander.

  “All hail the wife of Alexander, our new Queen of Queens,” I mused to Roxana from atop my warhorse. She lounged back in her litter beneath purple silk curtains that protected her fair skin from the devious heat, a ridiculous extravagance as we traveled from the subdued fortresses of Sogdiana toward Alexander’s next targets in India. A diadem twisted into a Heracles knot and studded with emeralds twinkled at her brow, a thinly filigreed cap of gold I’d caught her fingering as if she couldn’t believe it was there, even as she watched Alexander canter away. “That’s a fine accomplishment for the daughter of Oxyartes of Balkh.”