Empire of Dust (15 page)

She ignores the comment and points, her chains clinking. “There. In the dirt.”

He grabs the comb from her and examines it. Then he looks up, his eyes darting around the thick woods. Just as quickly, his face closes like a tightly rolled-up scroll, inscrutable.

“It will come in handy as we travel,” he says shrugging, shoving it into his pouch. “We can pry out the gems and cut up the gold and pay for food and lodging.” He looks at the sky. “It's late. Let's move on. Do you want to pee or not?”

“Don't you think it's strange?” she asks, suddenly not needing to go at all, “that I found that valuable ornament here? In the middle of nowhere?”

“Fortune smiles on us,” he says. “Some robber must have dropped it in his hurry to escape. Come.” He yanks on her rope.

Zo moves with him toward the horse, but a soft breeze brushes her skin, bringing with it the scent of pine, and... She turns back and frowns. There's that sweet, familiar smell again. Something lilting and floral and with it come memories of shimmering pillows, the soothing music of pipes and lyres, and succulent feasts served on silver platters.

She suddenly knows what it is.

“Ochus,” she says, her voice catching at the memories that have formed into an aching ball in her throat. The rope yanks her forward again and she stumbles.

“Too late. You had your chance to pee.”

“Ochus!” she says more loudly. “Stop a moment. There's palace perfume on the air.”

“How do you know what the palace smells like, horse trader's daughter?” he asks, crossing his arms, his eyes taking on a hard, shrewd look.

Zo shakes her head. Now is not the time. She pushes on. “There's something in the trees. Something else.”

He looks about to spew another sarcastic insult, but something in her face seems to stop him, for he slowly unsheathes his sword. “Do you hear something?” he asks quietly.

She shakes her head. “I
smell
something.”

He lifts his nose and shuts his eyes, inhaling deeply. “I do, too,” he says, letting his breath out. His golden eyes dart around again, like a rabbit sensing the nearby presence of an owl. “Look, over there. Those bushes are crushed.”

He gives her a warning look, drops the rope, and hands Zo the reins. Then he walks ahead of her, sword in hand, studying tracks in the ground.

“A large vehicle has been through here recently,” he says. “Very large from the depth of those tracks.”

Cautiously, they walk into the forest, their eyes scanning the leaf-covered ground. They spot a necklace of cascading flowers, each delicate petal a turquoise, a fat luminous pearl at each blossom's center, and a heavy gold bracelet with huge lions' head terminals. With each step, Zo falls further into the embrace of the perfume. She remembers the panic she and Shirin felt after they drank an amphora of unwatered wine and heard Zo's mother speaking angrily with Mandana, who tried to stall her from entering Zo's room. Zo grabbed a bottle of that perfume, took a swig to cover the smell of wine on her breath, grimaced, and handed it to Shirin, who did the same. It tasted as bad as it smelled good.

Part of her wants to laugh at the memory. Part of her wants to cry at losing her best friend to a fever. But most of her wonders what palace perfume is doing here, in the middle of the woods. With priceless jewelry.

Then, in a small clearing ahead, Zo sees something that shouldn't be there at all. Three bright red wheels high in the air. A vehicle, overturned, its contents strewn about it like raisins on a honey cake.

She drops the reins and walks toward it, stepping over scattered pillows and richly embroidered coverlets. Bright garments spill out of open trunks. One case has a dozen smashed perfume bottles, and the fragrance sweetens the air until she walks a few steps farther. Then she's aware of a new spice that rapidly grows stronger, overpowering the perfume. Her stomach flips. She knows what it is now.

“Zotasha!” Ochus says before she can open her mouth to call out to him. He ties the horse to a tree. “Don't go any closer.”

But she can't stop moving toward it. Now only a few steps away, she can see that it is a
harmanaxa
of bright red cowhide with purple human-headed bulls on the side. The curtains are ripped and hanging into the dark void of the interior. She's seen this
harmanaxa
once before. When the Great King visited Sardis three years ago, she and Shirin watched the procession from the women's viewing chamber atop the main gate of Sardis.

“What's it doing here?” she asks, climbing over a fallen branch. This vehicle should be in Persepolis, hundreds of miles east of here, or at least traveling in comfort on the Royal Road. Why did it leave the road? Was it forced onto this track? Lured here?

Ochus's hand is suddenly on her shoulder. “Stop,” he says. “Let me.”

She pulls away from him. She has to see what's inside. As she approaches, the sickly smell becomes stronger and she hears the buzzing of flies. She climbs up on the side of the wagon and flips open the torn cowhide curtain.

The stench slams into her face and she bends in half, gagging. A swarm of gorged flies rises, some of them getting tangled in her hair. In her desperate effort to get them out, she scratches her face with her manacles.

Then she looks down inside the
harmanaxa.

Three girls—no doubt princesses—no older than she, lie at odd angles. Gold jewelry glints on their green, bloated skin. Empty eye sockets stare blindly. And, worst of all, their robes are ripped open, and their chests exposed so that Zo can clearly see the deep, bloody Xs carved directly over their hearts.

The mark of the Assassins' Guild.

Chapter Fourteen

WITH A STRANGLED GASP
, Olympias sits bolt upright.

Every organ and muscle in her body is pulsing with pain. She wants to scream but her parched throat feels choked with ashes.

She looks around in panic, expecting to see enemies with drawn swords racing through flames to kill her, but instead she finds herself in a tidy, prosperous-looking cottage. An iron pot hangs over the fire pit, filling the room with the aroma of mouthwatering stew. She's in a clean shift on fresh sheets.

Olympias licks her parched lips. Her trembling hands grasp the
oenochoe
next to her bed, but it's too heavy to lift and she sets it back down shakily. Exhausted, she leans back on her pillow. She needs water or she will faint. And then she will need some of that stew and a cup of wine—

And then she remembers.

Bastian gave her wine under the sacred oak, a diabolically potent vintage that sent the world reeling and fire coursing through her veins.

Bastian poisoned her...and someone must have found her and brought her to this place.

If it wasn't for the theriac her poison master makes for her, she would have died. Every day for years, she has been ingesting a dash of arsenic, a pinch of wolfsbane, a sprinkle of dried jellyfish sting, a drop of deadly yewberry juice, and a dusting of fatal nightshade, combined with trace amounts of cobra, adder and viper venoms. Mixed with the cleansing properties of garlic, myrrh, and cinnamon and with sulfur to neutralize arsenic and charcoal to filter toxins, she has built up her tolerance to even the most deadly of poisons.

Fury at Bastian floods over her like an angry tide, nearly as dizzying as the poison had been. She will send her personal guards to find and kill him, first cutting off the parts he finds most precious. She will—

A black-haired woman enters the cottage, holding a basket of eggs. “Thanks be to the goddess!” she cries, rushing to the bed. “You're awake! The goddess of the sacred oak has been watching over you. She told me what she saw, what that man did to you.”

“Water,” Olympias croaks, and the woman grabs the
oenochoe
next to the bed and pours some into a clay cup which she holds up to Olympias. She gulps it down, some of the water dribbling onto her chin and splattering on her chest. When she's had her fill, she pushes the cup away and looks up at the woman. She is about forty, with flashing dark eyes, a strong jaw, and a slender, shapely form.

“Who are you?” she croaks. Her voice sounds strange from not speaking for so long.

“I am Nike, priestess of the sacred oak,” the woman says. “I found you there, unconscious, when I went to say the evening prayers. I've been taking care of your horse. What is your name? Can I send word to your family?”

Olympias stares at her in disbelief. How can the priestess of the sacred oak not recognize her own queen? Everyone in Macedon has heard of the queen's unique beauty. Who else in the land has long, thick, silver-blond hair? Olympias runs her hand over her head and frowns. Her hair is thin. She has lost a great deal.

Arsenic.

Nike interprets her silence as exhaustion. “But hush, don't speak,” she says. “Eat and rest. Here, I've drawn you a basin of water if you'd like to...wash yourself.”

Without meeting her eyes, Nike presents the heavy basin to her, placing it beside the bed.

The queen bends to dip her hands in, noticing how bony her pale fingers look. She splashes the cool water onto her face, breathing in a sigh. When she goes to take another splash, though, the reflection in the water causes her to freeze. At first, Olympias cannot register what she sees.

The face looking back at her is gaunt, her green eyes mere hollows in a skull. But it's not the thinness that makes her knock over the basin, screaming.

It's her lips.

They are as white as snow.

ACT THREE:
CONSPIRATOR

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

—Socrates

Chapter Fifteen

ALEXANDER SWEEPS SEVERAL
scrolls from the table to the floor. A servant springs from the corner to pick them up but he says, “Leave them!” and starts to pace around his father's office.
His
office for now. Compared to the rest of the palace, which Olympias has overdecorated with florid frescoes and fussy furniture, it's refreshingly masculine with simple chairs and tables and war trophies—swords, axes, spears, and bloody flags—adorning the walls.

His favorite trophy is the ripped flag of Crenides—a black eagle on white linen—which Philip personally captured when scaling the city's walls the year of Alexander's birth and renamed Philippi after himself. As long as Alex could remember, he dreamed of naming captured cities Alexandria.

He has always liked being in here—at least, when his father was in a good mood—just the way he liked sleeping beneath the stars when hunting or in a tent before a skirmish. He likes being away from his mother's painted cupids and Persian carpets and all the smoking amber and perfume in the incense burners that irritate his nose. But lately it seems nothing can calm him, not even this room.

Lately it's more than the troubles of a growing nation that have gotten under his skin. He can't stop thinking about his abilities, about what he reads in men's eyes, and about what Kat told him. Snake Blood. The idea both thrills him and makes him shudder. He doesn't understand it, how he could have come by it...but it stands to reason that if Kat has magic blood and is in fact his true sister, then he might, too. With his mother gone from the palace until yesterday, he has been unable to get the satisfaction his mind needs. He's torn between the intense hunger to explore this power, and wariness. He already has too much to concern him.

The morning has only just begun—the gentle light streaming in through open windows gives the room a warm, rosy glow—and Alex wonders how he will make it through the day. He crosses his arms and looks at the documents littering the floor. Pirates intercepting Macedonian merchant vessels in the Aegean. Protests in Athens about Macedon's growing power. So much news, and still no word of Cynane or Arridheus, despite dozens of spies and messengers fanning out across Macedon and nearby countries.

Individually, each troubling report would be a normal occurrence for the ruler of a country to deal with. But together they are a maddening burden.

And the latest message: confirmation that Persian troops have slipped inside Byzantium to fight off Philip's invasion and its navy has closed the Bosporus Straits. That means none of the grain from the rich lands around the Euxine Sea can sail out. Grain feeds armies. Buys mercenaries. Keeps the people happy and paying taxes.

It's just like the Persians to offer Macedon a treaty on the one hand in the form of a bride, and on the other to fight against them in Byzantium, Alex knows. Aristotle told him that Persians would see nothing inconsistent in inviting a guest to a dazzling feast—savory meat, Chian wine in golden cups, beautiful dancing girls—and poisoning him.

He can't afford to send his men to Byzantium until the Aesarian Lords have paid their compensation to Macedon and left the country, but he also can't afford
not
doing anything and risk defeat in Byzantium.

“Cleitarchus!” Alexander calls, and the door from the hall swings open. A soldier enters.

“Yes, my lord?”

“Send for Captain Palamedes. Tell him it's urgent.”

“Yes, my lord,” the soldier says, bowing, “but I'm afraid that when the queen arrived yesterday, she sent Captain Palamedes and the Olympians on a special mission. They are not here at the moment.”

Irritation rises in Alex like a cobra in a basket. His mother has her own unit, the Olympians, skilled not only in warfare but in espionage, deceit, poison, and all manner of treachery. They may not be the strongest nor most impressive unit in King Philip's army, but they are slick and fast and perfectly equipped to deal with Persia's slippery smiles. And his mother has sent them away.

Now his irritation coils around his chest, squeezing hard and spitting. Though Olympias was within her right to direct her own unit, protocol dictated that the king be informed to avoid just these circumstances. His mother has been back only one day, and she is already undermining Alex's authority.

“Send for the queen,” he says, slamming his hand on the desk so hard that quills jump and several scrolls join their comrades on the floor. “Tell her it's urgent.”

In a few minutes, a smiling Olympias enters on a wave of delicate perfume. Turning from the window, he sees that her bright eyes seem overlarge in a sunken face and her brows are heavily filled in with kohl. Her lips are painted blood red.

“My son, the war hero!” she says, her voice light and tinkling. She opens her arms to embrace him, and her wide sleeves fall back, revealing tiny wrists. He puts up a hand to stop her.

“Not now, Mother,” he says. “I must ask you to recall the Olympians from whatever task you've sent them on. I have need of them.”

The light falls harshly on her face. As she artfully arranges a bangle, he notices that she looks unwell, older than she did when he last saw her—was it ten days ago? Twelve? So much has happened since then it seems it was another lifetime.

“I'm afraid that's impossible,” she says. “I need them where they are.”

“Which is where, exactly?”

Olympias sweeps past him, settles in Philip's chair, and crosses her dainty ankles on the king's desk. She is wearing silver leather sandals in the shape of snakes with emerald eyes. “My Olympians are being
useful
, sweetheart. Are you worried about the pirates in the south Aegean?” She shakes her head. “They are getting forward. I will dispatch—”

“I didn't call you here to do my job for me!” Alexander says, rubbing a hand against a sore spot in the back of his neck. She's sitting in the king's chair, in his chair. With her feet on his desk. How can he get his own mother to move? “I have been managing well, while you disappeared.
Where
have you been?”

She sighs heavily and twists the loose rings on her fingers. “I went to deal with a threat to the realm.”

Alex looks at her coldly. “If by threat you mean Katerina, you can be assured that she is no threat. Neither was the potter family you murdered.”

“Oh, my darling.” His mother smiles at him with pity, and Alexander suddenly feels like he is six again, when a thunderstorm rattled the palace so violently that everyone took refuge in the wine cellars.
It is just the gods practicing their swordsmanship
, she said then, holding him close.
Oh! That was loud! That must have been Zeus whacking Mars on his shield. They will not harm us, though
.

Now Olympias wags her finger at him as if he is a cute but naughty little boy. “If you let every pretty pair of eyes turn your head,” she says, “then it's good that I've returned to the palace. The family needn't have died, but they wouldn't tell me her location. They defied the queen of Macedon so I had no other choice.”

She sighs, a long sigh, then picks up an open scroll on the desk, scans it, and throws it back down. “You know as well as I do, Alex, how things must be done in order to maintain power and respect. Already, Hagnon's quarters have been emptied and men vie for the treasurer's position.”

Heat pools in Alexander's stomach as he remembers the execution. He killed Hagnon, just as Olympias killed Kat's family. Is he
like
her? As a child, he wanted to be a warrior like Philip, but with his mother's grace, sophistication, and good looks. Now he wonders if they are alike in ways he doesn't want to acknowledge, and the thought chills him. But no, she killed innocent people, and he killed the guilty.

“They are completely different circumstances,” he snaps. Suddenly, he is aware of his heart pumping hard. He must ask. Now. “Mother, I know.”

“Know what, my darling?” She picks up his favorite dagger, forged in the blood of the last living phoenix, and rubs her fingers over the image of the bird on its hilt, wings and beak raised skyward, its eye a glowing ruby.

Alex takes it from her and places it back on his desk. “I know Katerina is my twin, your own flesh and blood.” He can't quite bring himself to say the other thing: Kat's theory that they both share Snake Blood.

Olympias inhales sharply. For a split second Alex sees something unfamiliar flicker across his mother's face, but it vanishes before he can name it.

He pushes on. “Why did you separate us at birth?”

“That old tale,” she says slowly, pulling her feet from the desk and rising in a cascade of shimmering scarlet robes. She starts pacing around the room, her hands clasped behind her back, and Alex realizes he must have inherited this habit from her, the need to move when conversation—or even thoughts—prove too burdensome.

“Years ago, Alex, when I was carrying you, I had a handmaiden, Helen, who, though unmarried, got herself pregnant and ran away. I heard rumors, over the years, that she was trying to pass off her child as mine.”

She stops pacing and turns to face him. “Alex, think about it. Why would I send my daughter away with a handmaiden? It simply doesn't make sense. I've always wanted a daughter, and Philip would have loved another girl to barter on the royal marriage market. Helen must have told Katerina this story before she died.”

His mother seems so angry, so sincere, that for a moment Alex doubts Kat's story. It is a strange one, after all. He wants to enter through his mother's eyes and learn the truth. He's never been pulled into her before, as he has with so many others over the years against his will. But if he concentrates—does again what he did with Hagnon and Theopompus—could he enter Olympias's mind, access her memories? Somehow he doubts she would allow it. Would she know what he was trying to do, avert her gaze?

He doesn't even get the chance to try. When he approaches her, she walks away. He puts a hand on her arm and she shakes it off and moves forward. She won't look at him.

He strides across the room and pours himself a cup of watered wine.

“Katerina didn't know any of this when she first arrived in Pella,” he says, raising the cup to his lips. He drinks deeply. “When she escaped from the cell you put her in on false charges, she went to Halicarnassus and met someone who knew Helen. That's where she learned what happened at my birth.”

Alex can see the gears and pulleys of his mother's mind working, moving and straining. Her wide eyes flit up to him. “Who?” she asks sharply. “Who did she meet?”

He noticed she doesn't bother to refute the false charges bit. “It doesn't matter,” he says.

“You're right, it doesn't,” she agrees, a little too swiftly. “What does matter is that under Macedonian law anyone pretending to be a member of the royal family is a traitor and must be executed. Katerina's mother was a traitor, and the girl herself is a traitor. Where is this peasant princess now?”

“Far from here,” Alex says, and lines appear around his mother's mouth. “I sent her on a diplomatic mission. She boarded ship almost a week ago.”

“If you loaded her down with gold and gifts you will never see her again.” Olympias snorts. “Your first diplomatic mission will be a failure.” She sighs and reaches out a skeletal hand to tuck a stray lock of his hair behind his ear. Her hand is dry as leather. Alexander flinches.

“Really, Alexander,” she says disapprovingly, “after all that time you spent studying with your precious Aristotle, you are still as gullible as a little boy.”

“Yes, I'm just a gullible little boy who, in his first real battle, beat the most lethal fighting force in the world,” he says, his voice as tight as a catapult spring. “Women from the palace—including Kat and your sixty-year-old mistress of the maids—helped me win that battle, Mother. But not you. You weren't here to help. You were off killing a harmless potter and his children.”

A painful mingling of emotions moves across her face: regret, longing, even the faint curl of a rueful smile. He's shocked to see tears well in her eyes, spill over, and leave a trail of bone-white skin as they slide through her heavy makeup. “You may not love me, but I am still your mother, Alexander. All my love is for you. My heart's desire is to see you succeed.” Her voice drops lower, softer. “Trust that all I do is for you.”

Alex watches in shocked dismay as she takes a handkerchief from her belt and dabs carefully at her cheeks. As she pulls away the white cloth, color comes with it. But before he can ask his mother what has happened, she turns and slips away, as silent and mysterious as a plume of smoke.

Who should he believe, Kat or his mother? If Olympias speaks the truth, then what does that mean for his unusual ability, his suspicion that it could be magic?

What should he do? If only Aristotle were here to advise him and not off in Samothrace studying natural history.

If only Heph were here to help him parse his mother's words. Then they could spar in the training ring. Burn off energy. That was always a sure way to center him, remind himself who he is. Alex's gaze slides from the closed door to the piles of scrolls on the floor. He needs to find a new sparring partner.

* * *

An hour later, Kadmus breaks from Alex's grip, twists and, catching him by the waist, throws him to the ground.

But not very hard.

And he doesn't pounce on Alex to end the match as Heph would have, glorying in his win. Instead he makes a lame attempt to knock him backward as Alex scrambles to his feet. When Alex lunges at him, he doesn't feel the taut resistance he should, the arms and shoulders repelling him, the sneaky feet tripping him. True, Kadmus is shorter than Alex is and probably weighs less, but he has had several years more battle training and fighting experience. Yet he goes down like a felled tree in the sand of the round training pit, his muscular, lithe warrior's body just lying there like a defeated little girl.