Authors: Stephanie Thornton
“It seems a thorough plan,” I said drily, bending over and pushing kindling into the kiln’s fire chamber. If Antipater weren’t such a bore, I might have felt pity for him for earning Olympias’ ire.
“It is indeed a thorough plan,” Olympias said. “Most especially the bit where I send you to accompany him.”
I slammed the kiln door shut so fast I almost caught my thumb in it. “What? You’d send
me
to Persia?”
To Persepolis with its famed Gate of Nations, the Hundred Columns Palace, and the Tomb of Kings. To Babylon with its Ishtar Gate and Hanging Gardens.
To a war to be fought, and battles to be won.
“If that must be my punishment,” I said calmly, although it was difficult to speak as my thudding heart had leapt to my throat in excitement.
Olympias’ lips thinned to a tight line. “You shall accompany Antipater and prove your renewed loyalty by reporting on his movements and those of his son.”
“When do I leave?”
“The ship is already waiting in the harbor.”
And just like that, Olympias would excise me from her life, like a surgeon slicing out gangrenous flesh. Would that I could do the same to her.
“I’d take Cynnane with me. And Arrhidaeus.”
Cynnane for protection, although I could handle a sword almost as well as she now that I’d seen twenty summers, and Arrhidaeus so he wasn’t left unprotected from Olympias. After all, save for Barsine’s illegitimate son, Arrhidaeus was our family’s only male heir should anything happen to Alexander. I couldn’t leave my brother in Olympias’ clutches.
“Take them,” she said. “I have no need of them here.”
“Thank you,” I said, forcing a smile. “I shall do my best to ensure Alexander’s continued success.”
She kissed my forehead and I had to force myself not to cringe. “See that you do.”
• • •
“A
n army is no place for a menagerie,” Antipater said, scowling, as I approached the entourage of soldiers and baggage waiting to escort us the remainder of the way to Babylon. Once again, I’d almost died from a sour stomach on the ship from Cassope to Pella and was thankful that the rest of the journey would take place overland by horse and cart.
I’d give at least a year of my life to never see the ocean again, five years to never step foot on the heaving deck of a cursed ship.
Olympias had commanded that I attend her Dionysian sacrifices for Alexander, and I could still smell the copper-coin reek of blood on my hands and feel writhing snakes on my skin. Now the road to Babylon and beyond stretched before us and my fingers itched to crack my whip overhead and race the whole way there. Antipater, on the other hand, looked ill as he gestured toward my baggage cart, stuffed with every sort of basket and cage imaginable. “Is all this really necessary?”
“I couldn’t leave my darlings behind,” I said as a slave lifted Aristomache’s basket onto the top of the load. It might be well worth the punishment to hide my lovely little snake in Antipater’s cot one night, just to hear him squeal like a child.
“Thessalonike is the protector of all creatures lost and broken,” Cassander said to his father, in a tone that might have been mocking or serious.
“And apparently half the animals on earth as well,” Antipater muttered as Cynnane mounted her stallion beside me. Pan, my shaggy goat, let out a loud
baa
as her lead rope was tied to the wagon. She’d given birth to a pair of kids while left behind in Pella and would provide fresh milk during our overland trek.
I’d never thought of myself as a protector of broken creatures, but Arrhidaeus sat in the cart with my newest companion nestled in a cage on his lap: an owl named Athena whose broken wing I’d healed. An excellent hunter, she was a sort of replacement for my orange cat, who had died of old age while we were in Cassope. Adea clambered into the cart next to Arrhidaeus and giggled as she fed the owl a strip of dried oxhide. Cynnane had insisted that her daughter accompany us in order to continue her military training, but that was a ruse to keep Adea away from Olympias.
And hidden in a secret compartment at the bottom of the owl cage was a letter Olympias had given me that morning, along with the command that it was for Alexander’s eyes only.
We’d see about that.
We left behind Pella’s fields of barley and grapes, passing men harvesting olives and sun-browned women braiding together green garlic stalks to dry. We rode until twilight spread across the sky like a black tide. The pace we kept was comfortable to accommodate the baggage train, but despite my training with Cynnane, my legs trembled as I dismounted late that night, ignoring Cassander’s proffered hand.
“You’re still with us, I see,” Antipater sniffed, as if he hoped that I might beg him to let us return to Pella instead of continuing on to Persia. Or that perhaps I’d expired in my saddle.
I gave him a honeyed smile, sweeping past both men with a flounce of road dust that made Antipater sneeze. “Dearest Antipater,” I said, “I’d ride halfway to Hades before I returned home to Pella.”
Little did I know but that threat would one day come true, in ways I could scarcely fathom in that moment.
I stroked the top of Athena’s feathered head through the bars of her cage and huddled into my
himation
before a roaring fire, shivering in the night cold and finally daring to pull loose Olympias’ letter while everyone else collected their portions of teeth-snapping barley groats, chewy dried dates, and hard white cheese. Several of the common soldiers ate a gray gruel straight out of their helmets, even dunking black strips of dried tunny into the mess.
My ears perked up at the rumble of men’s arguing voices, and I thought I detected Cassander’s low tone and his father’s barked commands, but I cared little for their family squabbles. Let them suffocate each other in their sleep and save us all the trouble.
With the fire shielding me from the rest of the royal entourage, I made as if warming my hands, holding Olympias’ parchment close enough to the flames that the seal grew soft. The warmed paper gave off the scent of Olympias’ musk perfume, as if she were scowling over my shoulder. I eased the wax away and read quickly, swallowing my disappointment.
Dearest Alexander,
It is with no small measure of relief that I deliver your siblings to you so that I might better attend to your interests in Macedon and Epirus during your prolonged absence. Antipater has answered your convenient summons to Babylon, in order to serve in whatever capacity you see fit. In the meantime you may rest assured that I shall govern the lands of your birth as you would rule them.
Your dutiful and loving mother,
Olympias of Epirus and Macedon
I resisted the urge to crumple the paper and throw it into the fire. There was nothing damning or inflammatory in Olympias’ words, nothing I hadn’t already heard from her lips countless times.
So annoyed was I that I didn’t hear the heavy footsteps approaching until a shadow fell over me.
“I have one of those too,” Arrhidaeus said. His paws were full of gray barley crackers with precarious towers of dried dates balanced atop them.
I rolled up the paper and hid it within the folds of my
himation
. “Have what?” I asked.
“A letter,” he said. He jumped as the wood popped and hissed, then dropped all his dates and crackers as he clamped both hands over his mouth. “Olympias made me promise not to tell,” he said, his gesture likely in response to both the spilled secret and the upset food. “She told me bad things would happen if I told.”
“Nothing bad will happen,” I assured him as I knelt to pick up his treats, but my curiosity was piqued. Olympias could scarcely stand to be in the same room as my simpleminded brother, yet now she recruited him to deliver messages to Alexander?
“We could read it,” I said slowly. “Together.”
Arrhidaeus made a face as he bit into a hardened barley groat, then snapped the cracker in half as he shook his head, his shaggy brown curls swinging over his forehead. “Silly Nike. I can’t read.”
I shrugged. “I can read it to you. I won’t tell if you won’t.”
He shook his head gravely. “I won’t tell.”
The tickle of guilt I felt for making Arrhidaeus into my accomplice dissipated as soon as I began reading.
Arrhidaeus’ letter was much more profitable than the one I carried.
Dearest Alexander,
As your mother, I shall speak plainly. It is dangerous for a man whose rule spans both edges of the world to remain without an heir. It is time for you to set aside your childhood toy, your eunuchs, and your mistresses. You must take more wives and set about the business of creating many sons to secure our family’s legacy.
In addition, there is the matter of your siblings. As Philip’s only other surviving son, the simpleton Arrhidaeus must remain unmarried and childless. You should have no qualms with Cynnane’s refusal to remarry as that deprives the would-be Amazon of the opportunity to rally some new husband’s forces against you.
Thus far, Antipater thinks to match together his son Cassander and your troublesome sister Thessalonike, but that hope shall die when you make Antipater heel like the dog he is. I send Thessalonike to you and bid you to use her marriage as an alliance, perhaps with one of your generals: Hephaestion, Ptolemy, or the like. Regardless, you must use the pieces at hand to your best benefit.
Your loving and dutiful mother,
Olympias
I stared at the parchment and then flung it into the fire.
“Nike, no!” Arrhidaeus yelled, then gaped as I burst out with empty laughter.
“It was a silly letter, Arrhidaeus,” I said to him, watching it twist and burn as I threaded my fingers through his and gave them a squeeze. “One that would have upset Alexander.”
Olympias thought I should marry Ptolemy or Hephaestion? I wasn’t averse to the idea of a husband, but I was averse to Olympias dictating who that husband should be. I sobered at the thought of marrying Ptolemy with his hair that stank of goose fat and his even oilier personality. But then I wondered what it would be like to have Hephaestion feed me olives at our wedding ceremony and take me to our marriage bed. . . . I colored then, thankful that no one could hear my thoughts.
Arrhidaeus was still looking at me anxiously, so I smiled and laid my head on his shoulder. He might be simple, Cynnane a misfit, and me . . . I didn’t even know what I was, like an extra shell in a child’s game of
ostrakinda
that no one quite knew what to do with. Despite our different mothers, we were Alexander’s family, come what might. I hugged Arrhidaeus’ arm, but my hand clasped the dagger at my waist when a man cleared his throat behind us.
“Put your knife away. It’s only me,” Cassander said. The man was almost Arrhidaeus’ size, but he made less noise than a snake on sand even as my owl hooted at him. “I only wish to speak to you, if you have a moment and Arrhidaeus doesn’t mind, that is.”
“I don’t mind,” Arrhidaeus said, scrambling to his feet before I could stop him. “I’ll play animals with Adea before bed.”
And just like that, my brother was gone, leaving me without the shield his presence would have provided.
Antipater’s son tapped on Athena’s cage and sat next to her on the trampled grass. “I fed your overgrown sparrow some jerky earlier,” he said. “But I’d wager she’d prefer fresh mice to military rations.”
“Don’t,” I said.
“Don’t what?”
“Try to get on my good side.”
“I wasn’t aware that you had one,” he said, tossing blades of grass into the fire as if trying to divine some message from their smoke.
“I’m overweary from the journey,” I said, feigning a yawn and lifting Athena’s cage so fast that it jostled her from her perch. She hooted in indignation and rustled her tail feathers. “I think I’ll retire for the night.”
“You’re a miserable liar,” Cassander said, glancing up as I stood. “Even a man as blind as Homer could see that traveling agrees with you. Or perhaps you’re simply happy to be free from Olympias with the promise of the campaigns still to come.”
“Perhaps,” I said. I wouldn’t acknowledge that he was right, at least not out loud. But the air smelled sharper under the dome of stars, and I actually looked forward to tomorrow, a brand-new day with no one to answer to save myself.
“What will you do when we arrive in Babylon?” Cassander asked, tossing another innocent blade of grass into the fire. “I don’t suppose you plan to wait obediently for Alexander to marry you off as Olympias commands.”
I swiveled to face him. “How do you know about that?”
He made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Olympias’ desires are as transparent as water, Thessalonike, as are my father’s.”
There was no arguing that.
I set down Athena’s cage, glancing east. “I don’t know what I’ll do in Babylon. At least not yet.”
“I know what you should do.”
“And what might that be?”
“Marry me.”
I choked, an indelicate sound no maiden should make upon receiving her first marriage proposal, and prayed to the four goddesses that Cassander couldn’t discern the laughter through my coughing.
He scowled and stood, half blocking the firelight with the heft of his shoulders. “I’ll take your mirth as a rejection.”
There was the Cassander I knew: morose, dour, and dull.
“You assume rightly,” I said, looking at the stars overhead to avoid having to blink back my tears of laughter. “But now you can tell your father that you made a valiant effort to ally yourself with my brother.”
“You must marry, Thessalonike, as must I,” he said slowly. “I’m not a golden lion like your brother, nor do women flock to me as they do Alexander and Hephaestion. But perhaps one day you’ll crave a husband who will do his duty by you.”
I snorted. “I’d sooner wed a goat than marry a man who considered me his
duty
.”