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I fidgeted, for my golden belt and sphinx pendant were so heavy that I feared I’d collapse before Alexander could marry me. I wished for nothing more than to be wearing my favorite brown robe with the tear under the arm, my fingers coated in oil while I tinkered with the magic crystal from Nimrud.

Our cousin Parysatis took her place behind me, a silent girl wearing a king’s ransom of gold and a startling crimson veil that covered her gaping cleft lip. Sadly, the royal blood of the former king Artaxerxes in her veins had done nothing to avert the terrible disfigurement she’d carried since her birth, one that marred not only her face but also her speech. She’d arrived this morning with Alexander’s entourage after he’d gathered her from Persepolis. It seemed that the Macedonian conqueror was determined to wed all the remaining royal daughters of Persia.

Macedonian soldiers in full armor and Persian women dressed in their finest robes packed the square. In years to come, some claimed that nine thousand people attended the weddings, but I know only that I wished I could run into the hills as I faced Alexander.

“Soldiers and wives of Macedon and Persia,” Alexander said from atop the dais. “Today is but the first of five days of weddings and celebrations during which we shall mark the unions of our two peoples. In addition to the bread, wine, and entertainment, I decree that every man who takes a wife here at Susa shall find his debts paid and a dowry provided for his wife from the spoils of our campaigns. Thus his future happiness shall be forever secure.”

The resulting cheers likely deafened faraway Macedon, and died down only as Alexander raised his arms for silence.

In a traditional wedding, the bridegroom sits with his bride beside him before they cut a loaf of brown bread dotted with sesame seeds, a symbol of fertility. Chairs had been placed along the lower dais stretching to the far ends of the square, their size and order meant to dictate the grooms’ prestige. The largest, a throne with gilded lion armrests and an inlaid mother-of-pearl back, waited behind Alexander, flanked by two smaller chairs.

But there should be three, for there were three royal brides to wed the Macedonian King of Kings today.

Alexander lowered himself onto his throne like an old man with swollen joints, then motioned to the chairs reserved for his brides.

“Stateira, daughter of Darius,” he said, gesturing to the first, “and Parysatis, daughter of Artaxerxes. I take you both as my wives. From this day forth, Stateira shall be my Queen of Queens.”

Stateira’s eyes mirrored my shock and confusion before she and Parysatis lifted their hems to assume their thrones in a cloud of rose and myrrh perfumes.

However, my sister and I weren’t the only ones stunned by Alexander’s declaration.

Roxana’s fists clenched and a foul storm of fury, hurt, and outrage swirled in her eyes at her sudden demotion to Alexander’s least royal, and therefore least important, wife. I doubted if he’d even had the decency to inform her until this very moment that he planned to give the title of Queen of Queens to my sister. I’d been reared on stories of dangerous harem intrigue and feared for my sister then. We’d need to keep an eye on Alexander’s vulgar little tart from Balkh.

Without even a glance in our direction, Alexander lifted my sister’s veil and kissed her full on the lips to a hailstorm of cheers. He deftly avoided revealing Parysatis’ cleft lip by kissing her through the veil even as my father’s former eunuch Bagoas brought forth a single great goblet filled with sweet wine. Alexander drank first, followed by my sister, but Stateira dared look over the rim of the cup at me, the question apparent in her eyes. Every soldier in the square cheered and raised a smaller goblet filled with golden wine, then drank to the health of the new royal unions.

I remained standing, alone and forgotten. I wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or relieved.

Hephaestion sat in the second groom’s chair to Alexander’s right. I suddenly didn’t like the way he was looking at me, as if he was about to make me the target of some joke. “Drypetis, daughter of Darius,” he said, his voice booming to reach the farthest fringes of the crowd. “I take you as my wife.”

I gaped at him, stricken dumb and rooted to the cobblestones even as he returned my stare.

“Move, girl,” my grandmother hissed as she prodded me in the back. Across from her, Roxana had recovered enough to manage some semblance of a smile, but it was far from pleasant.

Yet I couldn’t very well refuse the command, nor could I stand here slack-jawed like a dead sea bass all day. There was no denying my relief that I wouldn’t wed Alexander with his mercurial moods and fiery temper. Still, to marry Hephaestion . . .

I crumpled the pleats of my delicate wedding robe in two fists and forced myself up the dais. I’d have traded my rock crystal to hear Hephaestion’s thoughts then, but his face was a mask, with no hint of the wink from earlier or his usual obnoxious smile.

I lowered myself stiff-backed onto the carved wooden chair, leaning as far away from Hephaestion as I could manage without falling on my rump.

“I swear on Zeus’ bolts that I don’t bite,” he whispered, the brush of his arm against mine making me suddenly light-headed. “At least not in public.”

And yet my cheeks burned as I remembered the marks his teeth had made on my neck in the Tower of Silence, and how difficult it had been to hide them from my prim sister.

Alexander reached over Stateira to embrace Hephaestion like a brother. “Enjoy picking her lock,” he said, loud enough for even Stateira and Parysatis to hear. My ears flared, for Hephaestion had already picked my lock, as Alexander so eloquently put it. “She’ll be fulsome and bidding as any wife after this night.”

Hephaestion snorted. “You mistake my bride if you believe that to be true.”

Alexander raised his cup to us, nodding to me reverently. “I’ve given you the greatest of wedding gifts,” he said to me. “For Hephaestion is the best man I know.”

“Then you must know few men,” I muttered, prompting a sigh from Hephaestion.

He moved to lift my veil to kiss me and claim me as his own, but I batted his hand away, removing on my own the haze of gold with a tinkle of coins, the sound of all the gods and goddesses of the world laughing at me.

I closed my eyes so he couldn’t read my thoughts, but Hephaestion scarcely pressed his lips to mine, a pale shadow of the passion we’d shared just once. He raised his goblet to the crowd, took a deep pull, and passed the cup to me amid further cheers.

I was a wife now, married to the man I’d already bedded in a fit of grief and lust. So why did my hands tremble like leaves and my heart thud in my ears? And why was I disappointed by Hephaestion’s lackluster kiss?

I startled as his warm hand closed over mine.

“I believe these vows are binding until Hades parts us,” he murmured in my ear. “There’s no getting rid of me now.”

“Then I’ll offer a newborn calf to your god of death tonight,” I snapped, prompting his further laughter.

Apama, daughter of Ariamazes, was married off next, followed by Barsine’s younger sister to Alexander’s general Ptolemy. Alexander drank from his goblet with each marriage and the common soldiers wed their Persian prizes in quick succession, but the swirling maelstrom of my thoughts drowned out all the words exchanged between the women and their new husbands.

“What did Alexander offer you to go through with this?” I finally asked Hephaestion as the last of the couples assumed their places. My hands closed around our goblet, a masterpiece hammered with images of cavorting winged lions. “A great ship filled with gold? A troupe of nubile dancing boys?”

“Actually,” my husband said, without looking at me, “a golden ship filled with naked dancing boys coated in gold dust.”

If I could have hurled daggers with my eyes, Hephaestion would have been a dead man a hundred times over.

He sighed. “Alexander wished me to marry and join his family to mine. In fact, he commanded that we set to work making his nieces and nephews this very night.”

“Nieces and nephews,” I repeated dumbly. The most important happening these past years at Susa had been the arrival of fresh peaches; the events of this day were coming too fast even for me.

Hephaestion nodded, expressionless. “At least a dozen of each, I should think.”

I had nothing to say to that, only flushed and shrank back in my chair. I sat in silence, remembering every kiss and caress from the Tower of Silence, while Hephaestion jested with Alexander and loaves of crusty brown bread were distributed. The bridegrooms withdrew the swords from their belts and cut the loaves cleanly down the middle. Hephaestion handed me my half with a flourish and tore off a hearty chunk with his teeth.

I forced myself to swallow, but the bread may have been milled with spiders and flies, or ground pearls and precious cinnamon, for all I tasted.

Alexander’s own loaf was split in three, for among all these men, only he had taken more than one wife today. He stood and spread his arms in a grand gesture of munificence, his purple cloak spreading behind him like imperial eagle wings. “May the gods bless today’s many unions. Those of you eager for your marriage beds are free to go, and with my blessing. We shall need hundreds, perhaps thousands, of midwives to catch all the babes that shall be born nine months hence!”

This was met with hearty laughter and jeers, although crimson flushes stained the high cheekbones of many of the aristocratic Persian ladies. Some were pulled from their chairs and picked up by their husbands to be carted off to Susa’s bedchambers and tents. My grandmother mounted the dais, whispered something to Alexander, and then ushered my sister and Parysatis from their chairs.

Stateira shot me a commiserating glance over her shoulder as she followed our grandmother, but soon she was gone and I was alone, watching the couples empty from the square.

I waited for Hephaestion to move, but instead, a woman in an exquisite sapphire blue robe and veil bowed before Alexander and then came to stand before us. Barsine’s face was rounder after she’d given birth to baby Heracles, but she was as regal as any queen. I hadn’t noticed her before the ceremony, and was relieved to see her now.

“Many blessings on your union,” she said, kissing my cheeks first and then Hephaestion’s, lingering there for an extra breath. For a moment I wondered if she too had succumbed to my husband’s broad shoulders and lazy smile, but then she pressed her forehead to mine. “Your grandmother must ready your sister for Alexander,” she whispered. “So I volunteered to attend you.”

I squeezed her hand in appreciation, thankful for her calming presence.

“You may meet us at your tent, Hephaestion,” she said. “Return before the sun kisses the horizon.”

“Banned from my own tent on my wedding night,” he grumbled, running a finger along the rim of the wedding goblet. “I knew I shouldn’t have traded Aphrodite for Hestia.”

“That was your choice,” I said, my voice sharp. “Not mine.”

I tried to replicate my grandmother’s dignity as I stood, but failed miserably as the chair scraped loudly over the stones. Part of me thrilled at the thought of what was to come, for I’d experienced Hephaestion’s prowess with bed-sport firsthand. The other part was consumed with such anxiety that it seemed as if a demon had lodged itself in my stomach.

Barsine tutted under her breath once we’d left the square. “Do you know what I think?” she asked.

“What?”

“I think the lovemaking between you two is going to be earth-shattering.”

“Barsine!” I exclaimed, but she only laughed and pulled me through an alleyway to Susa’s main gate, where many enterprising vendors had set up carts of dried fruits and roasted nuts. Beyond that, a handful of royal pavilions had been erected since this morning.

“I can tell just by watching the two of you,” she said, her voice lilting with merriment. “You’d as soon tear each other’s clothes off as strangle each other.”

Our lovemaking
had
been earth-shattering and my knees grew weak at the thought of Hephaestion’s solid chest beneath his robe, though I’d never admit as much aloud.

Hephaestion’s tent was situated to the right of Alexander’s massive campaign pavilion with three smaller tents surrounding it like moons, one for each of his wives. Hephaestion’s canvas was larger than my chambers in Susa, its white panels striped with orange like the rays of the rising sun. My brow furrowed to see that my yellow dog was already tied outside and he barked in greeting at our approach, his tongue lolling from his graying muzzle and his tail wagging happily. Barsine must have read the question in my eyes, for she only smiled. “Alexander’s wives have their own tents, but you’re to share with Hephaestion, at least for now. Your grandmother ordered your things sent over during the ceremony.”

Not for the first time, I cursed my grandmother’s efficiency.

My dog jumped up on me, decorating my silks with dusty paw prints, but I ruffled his ears and kissed his muzzle before stepping inside. The tent’s interior walls continued the white and orange pattern and there were shelves and crates of books everywhere. I recognized my cedar toolbox near the door and my chests of robes. An ornate copper lamp hung from the center, illuminating the golden braziers, the low table, and the eating couches. I ignored the wide bed beneath the lamp with its plush mattress and elegantly woven bedcovers.

Behind me, Barsine cleared her throat. “Sit,” she said.

“What shall you do now?” I asked as she removed the golden veil from my hair. I wondered whether it had pained her to watch Alexander take two wives today, an honor he’d never offered to her.

Barsine answered, “My father and I shall retire to Pergamum now that Alexander no longer requires our services. My son is well cared for, but Alexander has made it plain that he wishes him to be raised away from his court, so as not to muddy the succession.” She coaxed several strands from my intricate knot of hair and twined them around her fingers before arranging them loosely down my back.

“You’ll garner respect wherever you go,” I said, “the woman of a king and mother of his son.”