The Conqueror's Wife

by Stephanie Thornton

  If my crimes against Stateira and Parysatis had truly been wrong, the gods would have cursed me with a girl or let me die in childbirth. Instead, they’d given me a perfect son as a sign of their favor.

  And so it was that I sat in the palace’s converted aviary on a winter’s day several months later, ignoring the lethargic snakes in the dovecotes as I struggled to spin coarse brown wool into usable yarn before ordering it dyed a vibrant purple and darned into tiny socks for my son. The nursemaid would bring Alexander Aegus to me after the midday meal, for I insisted on feeding my own son despite Olympias’ offer to secure a wet nurse. I’d have demanded at least three wet nurses to guarantee my son’s health had I sat upon the Eagle Throne alongside my husband, Alexander, but feeding his son with my own breasts was one way to prove myself demure and unassuming, dispelling the rumors of murder that had followed me from Babylon.

  “Roxana, dearest, I don’t think I gave you a proper gift to celebrate little Alexander’s birth, now, did I?” Olympias asked me, stroking the scaly skull of the mottled orange and black viper that she’d finished milking. She enjoyed instructing me on how to best handle the serpents while she milked their venom, but the snakes and their beady eyes made my skin crawl. Still, I dared not show Olympias such weakness. Fortunately I was saved from the task as slaves entered with wine and trays of crusty brown bread, goat cheese flecked with rosemary and wild chives, and an assortment of olives for the midday meal. The food served in the past weeks had been common fare in response to the recent skirmishes between Antipater’s and Olympias’ forces, which had ruined countless fields and threatened the harvest. So it was with great glee that I spied a bowl piled high with rare late-season pomegranates, each fruit sliced open to reveal seeds like polished garnets.

  I reached for one of the decadent fruits, but Olympias pushed the bowl from my reach. “Pomegranates might sour your milk, my pet.”

  I resumed my needlework with a dainty sniff. “No, I don’t recall any gifts.”

  She pursed her lips in what might have been a smile and tapped the fresh vial of poison on the table. “It’s a bit late, but I have a gift for you. Two, in fact.”

  “Truly?” The last gift I’d received for anything had been a handful of wilted wildflowers that Parizad had gathered and presented with a kiss to my forehead and a whisper that he couldn’t wait to meet his niece or nephew. That was before Alexander had died and before I’d enticed Stateira and Parysatis to the well in Babylon.

  I willed away the memory of my brother’s careless laugh and the earthy scent of herbs that had clung to his hair. I spoke to him every night as if he were still here with me, so that now the slaves thought I spoke to myself. They muttered chants against evil spirits each time they saw me.

  Stupid wart-faced hop-frogs, the lot of them.

  “I received news this morning that Antipater has died of illness,” Olympias said, gesturing to a parchment on the table. “I hope the Hydra in Tartarus relishes the taste of traitors.”

  I tried to summon some sliver of excitement, but a dead graybeard scarcely made an enticing gift, despite the war he had waged against Olympias. “Good news indeed,” I said, hoping her next offering involved something that shimmered in firelight, perhaps a new bolt of black silk I could cut to hide the bulge of my belly that remained after Alexander Aegus’ birth. I might be mother of the basileus, but I felt like a milk cow with deflated udders each night when I undressed and prodded the slack skin across my hips.

  “Now we have only Antipater’s ambitious sprat Cassander to contend with,” Olympias said, more to herself than me. I wondered what terrible fate she was planning for the bore I’d often seen hovering around Thessalonike. “And now your second gift.”

  At her signal a contingent of guards marched into the aviary with a mockery of a man stumbling between them. The oaf was dressed in a poorly arranged chiton with a purple cape that set my teeth on edge.

  “Piss and shit!” I cursed before I could stop myself, my spindle falling to the floor in a heap of tangled wool as I glowered at Alexander’s half-wit brother, Arrhidaeus. My son should not have to suffer the indignity of sharing his birthright with a beast better suited to mummery or goat herding. His mother might have spared the lot of us by ordering him abandoned on a dung heap as soon as he fell from her body. “What is he doing here?”

  The imbecile cocked his head. “They took us,” he said simply, as if I were the simpleton.

  “Immediately after his father’s demise, Cassander attempted to entice my Macedonian troops and Thracian mercenaries to turn against me,” Olympias answered, stroking the sardonyx pendant bearing both her and Alexander’s likenesses. “He didn’t anticipate their refusal or that they’d move against his allies. Sadly, Arrhidaeus and his wife were forced to flee. Fortunately, they didn’t get very far.”

  “You captured the Cyclops?” I asked Olympias. Parizad had recited to me the story of Odysseus’ encounter with Polyphemus the Cyclops, filched as it was from Hephaestion’s ridiculous collection of outlandish Greek tales. Pluck out one of Arrhidaeus’ eyes and he was exactly as I’d imagined the giant monster.

  “And his wife,” Olympias confirmed. “Fragile Adea is enjoying my hospitality elsewhere in the palace while she recovers from the fright of facing several regiments of armed Macedonians.”

  In truth, Arrhidaeus’ capture was a pleasing gift, as it meant that Alexander Aegus would no longer share his throne with a half-wit. But the capture of him and his wife paled in comparison with the woman who next entered the aviary, several guards prodding her with spears while she hurled insults at them.

  Thessalonike looked like a crass joke of the gods in her silver-studded greaves and polished breastplate. Her expression curdled still further when her gaze fell on me.

  “I might have known you’d give refuge to a known murderer,” she said, gesturing to me. “Do you two sit around the hearth fire at night and swap stories over the best way to kill your rivals?”

  “Stateira and Parysatis sought to murder me,” I lied through gritted teeth, rising from my chair before she could say more. “I dispatched them to protect Alexander’s son.”

  It was the story I’d first told to Olympias, recited each night until I almost believed it myself. I’d never told her about the child in Stateira’s belly, nor did I ever plan to.

  Some secrets beg to be told, others must be kept until the right moment, and still others swallowed until we forget they existed. The death of Stateira’s whelp was only one of the secrets I’d choked down. It was her child or mine.

  Thessalonike’s eyes devoured me. “I killed your brother and I’ll put a sword through you too.”

  I might have killed her then, for some irrational part of me clung to the belief that Parizad still lived, that I hadn’t led him to his death. My knees threatened to crumble to dust beneath me, but I reached out a hand to the snake cages to keep myself upright, digging my fingernails into the wood even as the serpents darted away from my sudden motion.

  “Enough!” Olympias’ voice rang out and she studied me for a moment, then patted the bench next to her. “Come and sit, Arrhidaeus. I ordered a tray of pomegranates for you.”

  “No!” Thessalonike screamed, but Olympias’ guards held the captive back, their hands clamped tight across her mouth as they dragged her toward the door. I bristled as the Cyclops stepped closer, chewing on the tip of his thumb as he glanced first at the snakes in the dovecote and then at Olympias, as if wondering which serpent was safer.

  “Pomegranates are my favorite,” the beast finally said. He sat at the table with a loud thump and shoveled the garnet-hued seeds into his mouth like a starving, overgrown, ugly ape.

  A full helmet should always cover a face like his, the better to save terrifying children and small animals. Especially when he ate.

  “Enjoy,” Olympias said to him. “They’re all for you.”

&nbs
p; “You show Alexander’s brother great benevolence,” I said with a genuine smile for Thessalonike, who remained restrained by the guards while tears poured down her cheeks.

  “His bastard half brother, sown from a common dancing girl who could barely dance,” Olympias said, breaking a crust of bread and eating a dainty bite even as her eyes devoured the Cyclops’ every movement. He made short work of the pomegranates, their scarlet blood staining his fingers, cheeks, and lips. “And I am indeed benevolent, considering the many Thracian mercenaries I lost during the slaughter of Cassander’s supporters.”

  But I knew Olympias’ mind and almost clapped my hands with glee. This would indeed be the best gift I’d ever received.

  It didn’t take long before the Cyclops frowned and stomped his feet. “Legs feel funny,” he said. “They hurt.”

  Only then did the guards release Thessalonike. She ran to Arrhidaeus and fell to her knees at his side. “Your joints are swelling.” She whirled on Olympias and me. “What poison did you give him?”

  Olympias continued eating, cutting a sliver of cheese even as her lips curled into a shade of a smile. In the meantime, Thessalonike implored the beast to bend his legs, but to no avail.

  “It’s cold,” he slurred as if his tongue had gone numb. He wrapped his arms around himself and rubbed them, but his fingers seemed frozen into misshapen claws. “Want to lie down.”

  “He needs a physician,” Thessalonike said to us, trying unsuccessfully to wedge herself into the pit of his arm to help him stand. Instead, Arrhidaeus slumped from his chair and fell to the tiles. “Fetch someone!” Thessalonike ordered.

  “There shall be no physician,” Olympias said, finally setting down the cheese. She lifted the vial of fresh snake venom toward the sun to admire the cloudy liquid. “The milk of the valley viper will soon render Philip’s last surviving son immobile. It shall be a quick death and relatively painless. As I said, I am nothing if not benevolent.”

  “You are a foul, murdering bitch!” Thessalonike reached for her sword, but her belt was empty. I laughed then, a high-pitched trill of delight. Thessalonike’s blade had stolen my brother’s life; now Mithra’s justice would be served as she watched her own brother die before her very eyes.

  “Restrain yourself or I shall have you removed,” Olympias commanded her calmly. “Then your bastard brother will die alone.”

  “And little Alexander Aegus shall rule alone,” I said to myself, a warm feeling spreading to my fingers and toes. “As he was meant to.”

  But Arrhidaeus ruined my moment of exultation with his blubbering.

  “I don’t want to die,” Cyclops said, his fat lower lip trembling. “I want to stay with you, Nike, you and Adea. I love Adea.”

  “Arrhidaeus!” Thessalonike fell to her knees next to her brother, tears pouring down her cheeks in a touching display.

  “My legs won’t move,” he said, his mouth opening and closing like an ugly fish’s. “Why is it so cold?”

  “Give him a blanket!” Thessalonike yelled, swallowing her sobs as she pushed shaggy curls away from his face.

  “Here,” Olympias said, unpinning the snake brooch at her shoulder and removing her linen himation. She let it fall to the tiles in a puddle of fabric. “You may use this.”

  Thessalonike yanked it up and wrapped it around her brother. The thin fabric scarcely covered his heaving chest.

  “The venom will soon reach his heart,” Olympias informed her as if commenting on the movement of the clouds outside. “Then he will be gone.”

  “I’m scared, Nike,” Cyclops said. A vein throbbed in his neck, like a tiny snake trapped beneath the skin.

  “You’re so brave,” Thessalonike told him, her tears splashing his face. “Just like Heracles. Would you like me to tell you the story of Heracles and the lion? It’s still your favorite, isn’t it?”

  Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the venom to do its work, although we were forced to listen to Thessalonike blubber her way through the story of Heracles and the Nemean Lion. Still, it was the clean and easy death that Olympias had promised, more than the man-child deserved.

  “Remove the body,” Olympias commanded to the waiting soldiers. “Arrhidaeus shall be buried alongside his father.”

  “Don’t touch him!” Thessalonike shrieked as the guards moved closer, the sound sending the snakes slithering to the corners of their cages. “How could you? Arrhidaeus was no threat to anyone!”

  “Surely even your feeble mind can understand that so long as your brother lived, he was a rallying point for Cassander’s faction,” Olympias said. “And now you shall remain with us here in Amphipolis, lest Cassander decide to wed you and strengthen his supposed claim to the regency.”

  “The gods shall curse you for this,” Thessalonike roared. “Both of you shall writhe in the abyss of Tartarus for all eternity.”

  “Seize her,” Olympias directed the waiting guards, a look of smug satisfaction settling on her features as Alexander’s sister struggled helplessly against the soldiers. “I have no need to listen to you or your worthless prattle.”

  Thessalonike continued crying as she was dragged away behind her brother’s body, leaving a blessed peace in her place. Slaves removed the tray of pomegranate husks and shuffled off. To any outsider, this might have been an ordinary day spent among women, no hint of execution by poison.

  This wouldn’t be the last time that Olympias awed me with her cunning.

  “An impressive gift,” I said to her.

  “Ah, here we are.” Olympias smiled as a messenger arrived wearing a staid expression. “Now we shall find out what fate young Adea has chosen for herself.”

  “Will you keep her imprisoned here?” I asked.

  “Not precisely,” Olympias answered, crossing one ankle over the other in the posture of a perfect queen. “I left three gifts for Adea in her chamber: a noose of silken rope, a vial of hemlock, and one of her mother’s old swords.” Olympias folded her hands in her lap as she addressed the messenger. “Which did she choose?”

  The man cleared his throat. “The lady Adea thanked you for your generosity, but said that she preferred none of them.”

  “Perhaps you didn’t understand my orders,” Olympias said, her eyes narrowing to slits. “You were not to come to me until the scheming sow breathed her last.”

  “As she has,” the man hurried to amend. “Adea, daughter of Cynnane and Amyntas, breathes no more. She hanged herself with her own girdle instead.”

  Olympias stared for a moment, then gave a little chortle. “She inherited her mother’s stubborn streak. It’s unfortunate she didn’t put the trait to better use.”

  It was my turn to smile, a gesture mixed with awe and appreciation. “Several moves well played.”

  Olympias shrugged and sipped her wine. “Adea and Arrhidaeus were very small players upon a very large stage.”

  Then she turned and issued orders for poached red snapper to be served that evening, commanding extra garlic and preserved lemon to flavor the fish. Slaves armed with buckets of hot water and horsehair brushes entered to wash the pomegranates’ scarlet stains from the mosaic floor; the crimson marks would require enough scrubbing to strip the skin from their work-hardened hands.

  And while Olympias’ back was turned, I palmed the vial of fresh viper milk and tucked it into my girdle.

  I might learn much from Olympias of Macedon. And guard myself against her while I was at it.

  • • •

  The deaths of Arrhidaeus and Adea prompted Cassander to besiege us with renewed vigor, so that Thessalonike crowed with vengeful delight from the confines of her chamber until I considered slitting her throat myself just so I wouldn’t hear her cackles echoing down the corridors. Months passed until Cassander’s relentless siege forced Olympias’ household to move from Amphipolis to the drab little village of Pydna-on-the-Sea,
a far cry from the palace I’d envisioned as my new residence when I first set out for Macedon. I told myself to be patient, but the chipped mosaics of the drunken god Dionysus underfoot cut the delicate skin of my feet, the drafty rooms made me shiver, and the frescoes of frolicking satyrs might have been painted by a bare-bottomed child still shitting himself. I refused to succumb to such travails and daydreamed during the siege reports of ordering a barrage of slaves to stitch me a wardrobe of different silk robes for each day of the year, all while planning to enlarge my own entourage to befit a woman of my station. Until then, I would cultivate patience here in miserable little Pydna. Olympias claimed it to be a better vantage point from which to best Cassander at his game of cat and mouse, yet she confided to me in private the true purpose of the move.

  “As to be expected, Cassander is enraged at Arrhidaeus’ death,” she said. “He plans to attack us, to make a final stand and end this once and for all.”

  “Naturally,” I said, clapping as little Alexander crawled away from his nervous nursemaid and toward me, his head held proudly as his bottom bounced in the air. I picked him up and rubbed my nose to his. “You don’t need ugly Cassander to help you rule when you have your mother and grandmother to do it for you, now, do you, my little lion cub?”

  Olympias afforded us a tight smile and handed me a fresh parchment, its seal recently broken. “He sees the futility of this engagement and turns to pen and ink instead of swords.”

  I continued to bounce Alexander, but scarcely glanced at the letter with its indecipherable scribbles. “And what does he say?”

  I didn’t care to parade my total ignorance of Greek—or any written language—before Olympias, lest she think me too dim-witted to help my son rule.

  She refolded the message, then held it over a burning candle of twisted rag and sheep fat. “He offers me protection if I surrender. Yet he makes no mention of you or my grandson.”

  I fingered the golden necklace at my throat, her words a rope around my neck. “And will you accept?”