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“I hope you’re right.” Cassander straightened. “I just made an offering to Hephaestion’s shade in remembrance of our days together at Mieza. I have no wish to do the same for your brother’s shade.” I waved a hand to silence him. The throne room was a veritable sea of Persian robes and men with beards of oiled ringlets, yet Cassander remained in his crisp military
chlamys
and tunic, a staunch Macedonian down to his unlaughing heart.

I watched as Ethiopians and Libyans, Scyths, and Persians filed in to genuflect and offer their condolences to my brother, bending so deeply that their foreheads brushed the ground as they kissed their fingertips, a gesture reserved only for the gods in Macedon. Next to me, Cassander gave a derisive snort. “The foreigners do worship Alexander, don’t they?” he said. “Perhaps they’ll build him a temple to rival Artemis’ in Ephesus. They’ve already opened all their gates and treasuries to him to avoid being slaughtered, or, worse, burned to death like that singer he doused in naphtha.”

Alexander swiveled toward us and glowered like an angry statue of Zeus. Then he stood and walked down the steps of the dais, coming to stand directly before Cassander. In one fluid motion suited to a battlefield maneuver, he lifted Cassander by the neck of his
chiton
and slammed him against the wall.

“Don’t you ever insult my
satraps
,” he growled, eliciting a collective gasp as he banged Cassander’s head repeatedly against a fresco depicting a hunting scene. “You and your family are nothing save a lot of sniveling, grasping snakes and I’ll see you all thrown into the pit of Tartarus before I’m through with you!”

“Dearest brother.” I touched Alexander’s arm, feeling everyone’s attention heavy on my back. “I’ll be the first to admit that Cassander is a terrible bore, but surely this fresco is too fine to ruin with his thick skull.”

Alexander turned to me, his brow furrowing and the fury in his eyes clearing, only to be replaced with revulsion. “I have no qualms with my sister enjoying herself with the men of my court,” he said. “But I’d have hoped you’d have had better taste than to spread your legs for the son of Antipater.”

My cheeks flared and I recoiled at the very suggestion. Me, spread my legs for Cassander, when I might as well have pledged myself to the virgin goddess Artemis? “I’ve never taken any man between my legs, much less Cassander,” I said in a stony voice. “And if you were anyone save my brother, I’d make you regret the very suggestion.”

Alexander loosened his grip on Cassander, whose face had contorted and gone pale. “I knew you had better sense,” my brother said, smiling and chucking me under the chin as if I were a girl of ten again and he hadn’t just thoroughly denigrated me in front of his entire court.

“I believe you have yet to bow to me,” he then said to Cassander, his countenance turning to ice again and making me wonder what had become of my golden brother who seemed to carry the sun under his skin. “Perhaps you seek to rectify your error.”

And so Cassander bent his knees to my brother just as the Persians had done, although a vein in his jaw beat an angry tattoo as he kissed his fingertips.

“Welcome to my court, Cassander, son of Antipater,” Alexander said, turning his back to greet some Persian noble, as if the entire episode had never happened.

“You’d do well not to anger him,” I murmured to Cassander. “For I won’t bare my neck for you again.”

Especially as such an intercession might be construed as affection for Cassander and his ugly face.

“He’ll pay for that,” Cassander muttered under his breath, and I waited for him to prattle on about deformed livers again, yet he only clenched his fists. “The gods won’t allow such hubris to go unpunished.”

I sighed. “If I were an Olympian, I’d punish all the men who claimed to know my mind by causing exactly the opposite of whatever they’d prophesized for the future.”

Cassander only frowned at me. “How do you know they don’t already?”

He turned then and departed without another word, leaving me to remember the Pythia’s prophecy that had echoed throughout Greece and followed Alexander since almost his earliest days of campaigning.

The lion of Macedon is invincible, as was Heracles before him.

Yet Heracles had died a brutal death, poisoned by the venom of the very Hydra he’d once slain.

And while Alexander claimed Zeus and Ammon as his fathers and Achilles and Heracles as his ancestors, at thirty-three years he’d already accomplished more than any god or hero. Surely he’d accomplish much more still before the gods granted him immortality in exchange for his labors spent conquering the earth.

I only hoped that the weight of my brother’s labors wouldn’t fell him as they had his ancestor Heracles.

CHAPTER 24

323 BCE

Babylon, Persia

Roxana

I lay sated and wrapped in Alexander’s arms, our flesh still damp as I traced the jagged line of an old scar on his neck. I’d tried counting all the faded pink marks with my lips earlier, but my husband’s demanding hands had distracted me by the time I hit seven. Now those same demanding hands stroked the pale moon of my belly.

“My son,” he said.

The babe beneath fluttered and I laughed, pressing Alexander’s hand more firmly so he might feel the magic within my womb. “Did you feel that?” I asked. “He’s eager to meet his father.”

“And I him,” Alexander answered. “I’ve ordered the finest sword smith in Babylon to forge a golden half blade with a half-sized helmet. My son’s shield will be emblazoned with the sun of Macedon and the winged griffin of Persia.”

Macedon and Persia united, just as Alexander and I had been only moments before in this very bed. The thought made me grow wet and eager for him again. The last time my husband had visited my bed had been on the night I’d conceived our son, a hurried groping after Alexander had guzzled a tub of wine to drive away the lingering pain from his many war injuries. He’d fumbled at me between belched wine fumes, but I’d moaned and let him take me from behind like a temple whore, feigning pleasure even as I clenched my thighs tight to claim the ultimate prize.

His spent seed had been sown deep in my womb, planting the babe that grew there now.

Tonight Alexander had come to me out of duty. I missed the pleasures of the early days of our marriage, when he had devoured me each night and left me quivering for more. While I’d guarded my battered heart from him, his lust for me had been more intoxicating than the sweetest of wines. How could it not be, coming from so godlike a man?

Hoping to recapture that passion, this evening I’d dressed in anticipation of his visit in a diaphanous robe pinned at my navel to reveal the swell of his child and the dark triangle of hair beneath. He’d protested that he didn’t wish to harm the baby until I’d guided his hand from my belly to the warm wetness between my legs, moaning and parting my lips as I brought his other hand to my swollen breasts. He’d squeezed the tender mounds, pain mixed with pleasure as his tongue flicked a darkened nipple. Soon he’d been buried deep inside me, crying out his release as I clung to him.

“What shall you name him?” I asked, fairly purring with pleasure as Alexander’s fingers painted transparent circles around my navel.

“My son by Barsine is called Heracles,” he said, his hand stopping as he stared up at the drab painted ceiling depicting the flowers of Babylon’s famed gardens, a ceiling that might have been studded with pearls and rubies had I commissioned it. My lips curled in distaste at the mention of Alexander’s whore and her bastard son.

“But this child shall be your heir,” I reminded him, keeping my voice as sweet as peach syrup as I sat up, baring my naked breasts, which Alexander had moaned into only moments earlier, worshipping their new ripeness. “Thus, he must have an even more magnificent name.”

Alexander threaded his fingers through my hair, fanning out the strands. “And what would you name him?”

“There’s only one name I’d allow,” I said, looking at him through my sweep of lashes. “Alexander.”

The grin that spread across his face almost banished his sallow skin and the shadows around his eyes. “Alexander it is, then,” he said. I tried to curl into him, but he rose in one fluid motion, the muscles of his back and legs bulging as he slipped into the purple robe I’d so recently tugged over his head.

“Where are you going?” I tried to make my tone alluring, but it shrilled with desperation even to my own ears.

“I must visit Stateira this night,” he said.

Stateira with her royal blood, her perfect graces, and the title she’d stolen from me.

“Surely Stateira and her sour stomach can wait until tomorrow,” I said, rising and running a perfectly manicured finger up his arm in a way that should have induced gooseflesh. Yet my husband had already returned to a man chiseled from stone. “Stay with me tonight.”

He clasped my wrist so hard that I gasped, but then released it to kiss my hand. “I cannot neglect Darius’ daughter,” he murmured, pressing my open palm to his lips.

“Yet you can neglect me, your first wife? Is that because I’m only the daughter of a
satrap
?”

And not even that, although Alexander would never learn the truth of my sire from my lips or Oxyartes of Balkh’s. My marriage had brought Oxyartes sniffing for an appointment, blackmailing me with the truth of my parentage. It had been an easy thing in those early days to persuade Alexander to appoint him as the
satrap
of faraway Paropamisadae. It was a situation that benefited us both: Oxyartes received a lucrative position that allowed him to gamble away a kingdom’s worth of gold, and I never had to hear from him again.

“I can neglect neither you nor Stateira,” Alexander said with a sigh. “Especially as both your wombs carry my children.”

A winter wind wrapped around my heart. “How is that possible?” I gasped before I could stop myself. I’d bribed Stateira’s slaves to grind Parizad’s steady stream of mustard seeds, rue, and devil’s snare into her food, keeping her stomach in knots. I’d presumed the never-ending, painful gas and stink of vomit would have kept Alexander from her bed, but it appeared that he was more determined to hammer her gates than I’d anticipated.

“Stateira has a weak constitution, but rallies to do her duty,” he said.

“And what about Parysatis?” I asked. “Have you filled her womb as well?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But soon.”

I grimaced. “I’m not sure how you can bear to look at that mangled face of hers.”

“I am an able farmer, sowing all my fields equally,” he said, letting his fingers brush my belly. “Rest well, Roxana, and take care of my son.”

I watched him go in silence until the door closed, then grabbed a discarded slipper and hurled it after him. It hit the wall and fell harmlessly to the floor.

“Piss and shit!” I yelled.

Parizad’s herbs had failed to keep Alexander from Stateira’s bed and now my husband plowed Parysatis, the traitor Bagoas, and the gods only knew whom else. Not for the first time, I thanked the dark god Ahriman for Hephaestion’s death, which had removed at least one bed from Alexander’s rotation.

There was no doubt that I’d resume my position as Queen of Queens if I bore Alexander’s only son. I’d be wife to one king and mother to the next, my future secure.

But if I bore a girl or if this child died, or if Stateira bore a son, or even Parysatis . . .

Parysatis was easier to intimidate than a whipped puppy. And as for Stateira, surely I was more than a match for that dumb, obedient cow.

I
would be queen. And I’d allow no one to stand in my way.

•   •   •

P
arizad blanched when I told him what I wished, but wordlessly he ground a tea of milkweed root, crocus stamens, and balsam pear seeds for Stateira. So stricken had been my brother upon first hearing of Hephaestion’s passing that he’d dared to accuse me of poisoning the great oaf. It had taken all my restraint not to lash out and instead convince him of the disappointing truth. For while I’d loathed Hephaestion, there were several others I’d have poisoned first, namely Darius’ condescending daughters. I’d forgiven my brother’s cruel words and wiped his tears all that night, stroking his hair as he alternated between apologizing to me and cursing the gods for stealing away his former bedmate.