Empire of Dust (17 page)

Cyn's body goes rigid.
Marriage
. At eighteen, Cyn is getting quite long in the tooth on the marriage market; most princesses are married off as soon as they bleed at twelve or thirteen. She's successfully avoided it until now. It is something she simply cannot allow.

“My queen,” she says, and she notices that Olympias looks momentarily startled as Cyn addresses her by that title. She has never done so before now.

Trying to hide her desperation, Cyn pushes on. “I wish to regain my stolen birthright, the kingdom of Dardania in Illyria. I don't want to stay in Macedon. After Philip, Alex will be king and there is no place for me here, just a spot on the royal marriage market, as you say. I don't want to marry, not even to become a queen consort. Everyone knows they don't have any power.”

The last bit slides out before she can stop it, and Cyn almost flinches at her mistake. Olympias herself is only a queen consort.

Olympias rounds on her, green eyes glittering dangerously in her white marble face streaked with delicate veins of gray-blue. “What, exactly, are you suggesting?”

Cyn is suddenly very tired, either from her journey or from these games, she can't tell which. She rushes on. “What I'm trying to say is that in order for me to rule in my own right, my cousin Amyntas, the king, must die.”

Cyn looks the queen straight in the eye. “Give me his head, and I will do whatever you ask me to do. I know you have plots and plans and lovers. Surely you could use someone with my skills. I can skewer a man twice my size with a sword, or seduce him and get him to tell me whatever I want.”

The queen takes a step away from her, and she walks slowly around the room, snatching sheets off furniture, and running her fingers over tables and chairs as Cyn's blood boils. Olympias has no right to be in here, touching these items. This was and will always be Audata's room. Never hers.

The queen finally stops before a window and looks out over the city of Pella and the purple-blue hills rising in the distance. Then she seems to make a decision. She turns and studies Cyn with interest. “I
could
arrange for Amyntas to have an accident,” she says slowly, “or have him drink something that disagrees with him....”

Hope sparks inside her. Olympias—with her rumored networks of spies and poisoners—could easily do it.

“But,” Olympias adds, and Cyn braces herself for the price she knew would come. “I will want something from you, first.”

The queen smiles, and for a moment Cyn wonders if her hard white face will crack. What
happened
to her? Her teeth, which were always blazing white from sanding them with pumice stone and rinsing them with vinegar, now seem oddly yellow in her chalklike face.

She quickly looks away from the queen's teeth. “Tell me.”

“Last week Alexander sent that peasant friend of his, Katerina, on a secret mission,” the queen says. “You must find out where she is, go there, and bring me back
her
head on a platter. Then I will arrange for you to go to Dardania as queen.”

Olympias's eyes—molten green lights in that ghastly white face—are boring into Cynane as if daring her to protest, to ask questions. And though she has a thousand questions, Cyn realizes she doesn't really care why Olympias wants Kat dead. If that's what it takes for her to become ruler of Dardania, she'll do it. No answers needed.

“Agreed,” she says, nodding. “I'll find her, kill her, and bring her head back to you. But you must make an oath that if I do this, you will make me queen of Dardania.”

Olympias raises both arms and bows her head low. “I promise you, Cynane of Macedon, if you do as I ask, I will deliver Amyntas's heart to you on a golden platter. And I swear on all that I hold holy, by the vengeance of the Furies, and on the sacred mysteries of Dionysus and the Kabeiri, that I will ensure you become queen of Dardania.”

Cyn searches the queen's face, looking for the lie. She can't find it, which disturbs her. There has to be a lie there
somewhere
. Her stepmother pulls the veil over her face before Cyn can interrogate her.

“You must hurry,” Olympias says. “For if Philip signs a marriage contract before you've accomplished this task, not even I can sway his mind.”

Cynane does not reply. There is no need. She picks up the scroll containing the story of the man of smoke and heads for the door. Already she has a plan. She will search her father's office, and if there's nothing in there about Katerina's whereabouts, she will bribe servants or charm soldiers until she knows the mission.

In the hall she turns back and sees Olympias standing in the center of the room, a heavily veiled, unmoving figure, like one of Hades's shades. A shudder runs from the top of her spine down to its base as if a blade had slit it open.

* * *

Cyn opens the door to Alex's office and silently slips inside. She is not alone. There is a girl already in there.

Cyn recognizes her from somewhere, though the waterfall of golden spangled veils cascading from the top of her head down to the floor seems new. Cynane tilts her head and sees her rubbing a small item with one of her veils. Little pieces of something—wax?—fall onto the desk. She gathers these up in her hand, sprinkles them inside her robe, and places a golden object in a drawer—Alexander's regency seal, his profile inside the sixteen-pointed gold star of Macedon. The seal that, impressed on wax at the bottom of a document, proves that he wrote it.

When the girl turns slightly, Cyn sees the distinctive catlike profile and knows; it's Sarina, Arri's nurse. In two strides Cynane is at the desk, her hand like a vise around the girl's slender, golden-brown wrist. “What documents have you just affixed my brother's royal seal to?” she hisses. She tightens her grip on the girl's wrist so that she winces.

“I've just—I didn't—” Sarina stammers. With her free hand, Cyn opens the drawer and pulls out a large, round gold seal on the end of an agate handle. She runs her thumbs over the carved flat surface on the bottom. The gold is faintly warm. The red wax taper beside it is soft, melted.

“Please,” Sarina says, her throaty voice shaking, as she looks down and bites her lip. “I am only trying to release my brother from prison in Egypt. The prince regent is so overburdened with cares, I didn't want to ask him to do it. It is such a little thing, a letter to the Persian satrap in Memphis asking to let my brother out so he can join me here. He is all the family I have left. The Persians killed everyone else.”

“And how is it you have access to Alexander's office?”

Sarina tugs a veil. “With Arri...gone...Alexander has made me his personal attendant.” She holds out her hand, and Cyn can clearly see the silver signet ring engraved with the sixteen-pointed Macedonian star that marks her as a member of Alex's household. Interesting...and possibly advantageous.

“Writing letters as the prince is forgery,” Cyn says, drawing herself up to her full height. She towers above Sarina, who takes a step back. “A crime punishable by torture and death.” The girl opens her mouth, but Cyn holds up her palm to silence her. “However, I won't tell Alexander so long as you give me the information I need.”

“Anything, my lady,” Sarina says, dropping a curtsy. “If I don't have it, I will find it for you, I promise.”

Cyn relaxes, leans against the edge of Alex's desk, and folds her arms. “Last week the prince sent Alex's friend Katerina on a mission somewhere. I need to know where. By tomorrow.”

“Ah,” she says softly. “That I already know.” She clears her throat and her black, liquid eyes look at Cyn. For a second, Cyn is mesmerized by their bright depths. “She did not go alone, my lady. Lord Hephaestion accompanied her.”

Heph? Cyn feels a small, hot spark of...something. “Where did they go?”

“They went to Egypt to find the palace of Princess Laila of Sharuna along the Nile. There is talk of a marriage between Alexander and Laila, or at least a treaty with military assistance.”

How curious, Cyn thinks, and she narrows her eyes. “If you're lying...”

The girl shakes her head. “No lie, princess.”

“Good. Because if you are, I shall kill you.” Cyn heads for the door before she can see how Sarina reacts to the threat. She doesn't have time for nursemaids-turned-mistresses. She doesn't have time, either, to worry over how a lowly slave girl has learned to write.

In the hall, torches throw moving shadows on the dark red walls, making the frescoes of Hercules killing the Nemean lion with a club seem to move. Cyn, too, needs to move, but ships to Egypt are always leaving from Pella's port. Olympias will give her money, and she will pack lightly, riding to the port at dawn. It's a pity she'll miss the battle against those bastards, the Aesarian Lords, but—

“Did you find what you were looking for, my lady?” Cyn turns to see the guard who let her into the office addressing her. Torchlight glints off dark eyes on either side of a bronze nosepiece, and Cyn allows herself a moment to take in his height and shoulders that have no problem filling out his scarlet cloak.

She wishes she could see his face, the shape of his nose and the angle of his jaw, all hidden by the bronze helmet. But perhaps the face doesn't matter. The body is perfect, and unlike most warriors he's in possession of a full set of white teeth.

She wonders if she should invite him for a cup of wine in her room once his watch is over. The last man whose company she enjoyed was Hephaestion, almost a month ago, and that hadn't ended well... Cyn studies the guard again. His biceps are so huge, he could crush her, and the idea excites her. But, alas, she must rise early for her journey to track Kat. And her entire body still aches from her ordeal.

“I might have,” she says, her gaze slowly scanning up to his face.

White teeth flash at her from the shadows of his helmet. “Am I really a turd-eating, goat-humping sonofabitch? And are you really going to...um, bite me where it hurts?”

She stops. “What?”

“That's what you said when I picked you up from the road,” he says.

“You?” All she saw was something like a bear hurtling toward her with outstretched arms.

“Me,” he replies. The part of his face she can see behind the helmet crinkles into a smile. She decides that the face must be handsome, too.

“What is your name?” she asks, arching her back slightly so that her breasts strain against her smoke-colored shift. They are not as full as they used to be, but they are still shapely.

His eyes travel down to her chest, and he smiles. “Priam.”

“Priam.” She allows herself to draw out his name a beat too long so that her voice drapes on the air like perfume. She turns her back and begins to walk toward the queen's chambers, conscious of how her hips sway with each step. She'll have to find soldier Priam again when she returns to Pella. He might make a nice plaything as she awaits news of Amyntas's murder and makes her way to Illyria as queen.

But first, she must find and kill that peasant-bitch, Katerina.

Chapter Seventeen

HEPH LEANS ON
the railing of the narrow, flat-bottomed riverboat and realizes once again that he was wrong. He has always thought of Egypt as a parched place of unending sand, but this is a land of sweeping, roiling water. It spreads out east and west as far as he can see, an ocean of rippling lapis blue, bustling with boats. Heph knew from his time in Mieza that the Nile floods for half the year, leaving behind rich, black alluvial earth for crops, but he never imagined a flood like this.

In Caria, it had taken them three days to find space on a boat bound for Egypt. Every available spot was taken up by Persian soldiers headed to quell rebellion. Finally, just when he thought he was going to lose his mind from impatience, they bought passage. Poseidon granted them a stiff following wind and fine weather on the two-day sail to Naucratis, an old Greek trading port on the westernmost branch of the seven mouths of the Nile.

And yesterday, Heph hired the most experienced riverboat captain he could find to navigate the dangerous Delta, a land of twisting canals, sucking swamps, and high, feathery-tufted papyrus reeds that routinely swallows entire invading armies who've lost their way. Their boat, the
Hathor,
glided past large villages built on stilts and negotiated around thin fishermen on the flimsiest of boats made of papyrus reeds.

Sudden winged explosions of geese and ducks surging from the reeds made Heph jump more than a few times. Kat laughed when she caught him grabbing for his sword, but it was his turn to laugh this morning when a hippopotamus rose next to their boat. Water poured off its flat brown head as it opened its enormous pink maw and emitted a roar that made Kat, the professed animal-lover, shriek on deck.

Finally, the boat emerges from the meandering forests of reeds onto the Nile proper, and now a stiff north breeze fills the huge rectangular sail, pushing the craft toward what looks like three snowy mountains in the distance. Heph's pulse races. He thinks he knows what they are.

Kat slides out of the cool shadows of the long canopy in the middle of the boat and puts her hand over her eyes. “What's that?” she asks, squinting.

“The pyramids,” he says, his voice soft with wonder. “Tombs of the ancient Egyptian kings.”

Soon they are gliding past three gigantic pyramids coated with white limestone and capped with gold that burns like fire in the bright afternoon sky. Aristotle said the pyramids were big, but the word
big
hardly begins to describe these mountains filling the sky in front of him. He finds it hard to credit men with building them. Gods, maybe, but not men.

In the distance, he sees a city glimmering white, its gigantic walls painted with colorful animal-headed gods. A broad channel wraps around the walls where part of the Nile has been diverted, making the city a fortified island. From its center, gold-tipped obelisks rise like divine fingers pointing heavenward.

“The white walls of Memphis,” Heph says, “the capital of Egypt.”

“Are you sure?” Kat says. “I thought maybe it was Mount Olympus come down to sea level. It doesn't seem real, somehow.” She laughs. “And to think, when I first saw Pella I nearly swooned. But this...” Her words peter out, and wind wraps gently around her hair, tugging strands loose.

He, too, feels a surge of joy to experience the unfathomable wonders of Egypt with her. Though they disliked each other heartily at first, he now realizes they are alike in many ways: fiercely loyal, defiantly courageous, and constantly nagged by the feeling they never quite know where they belong.

For a moment, he can almost forget the urgency of their mission. That if they don't return with a military alliance for Alexander, Macedon could be in danger of falling to Persia. That if
he
doesn't satisfy the prince's request, he may fall from Alex's grace forever. For a moment, he can almost forget his love for Alexander, the best friend he ever had. And the horrible prophecy that predicts Alex's death at the hands of his own sister.

Kat flashes Heph a dazzling smile, which sends a jolt of prickling heat through him. Heph quickly looks away. He made a promise—to her, and to himself.

“What is the name of their king?” she asks.

“They call their king a pharaoh, and there isn't one at the moment,” Heph says. “When the Persians invaded three years ago, he ran south to Ethiopia, and no one has heard of him since. The Persians have a satrap ruling now, a kind of general-governor.”

The port of Memphis spreads out along the river as far as he can see. The
Hathor
passes shipbuilding facilities, a naval arsenal, and enormous silos that must serve as warehouses for Egypt's abundant grain. As the boat's rowers angle the craft toward one of the piers in the bustling port, they nearly collide with an Egyptian funeral boat. Female mourners, faces caked with white mud, gather around a gilded mummy case, shrieking and beating their bare breasts.

“Egypt is so very
different
,” Kat whispers, as the rowers stow their paddles and throw ropes to the pilings. “Caria was much more like home.”

The
Hathor
's captain bustles up beside them. His potbelly, hovering over two spindly legs, reminds Heph of one of the fat swamp birds he saw in the Delta waiting for fish. “We dock here for the night,” he says in badly mangled Persian—the language he must assume they speak as the region is under Persian control. “Will you stay on deck or go into town?”

Heph glances at Kat. The skin below her eyes is tinged slightly with cobalt. He knows she hardly slept last night. There were river monsters—the captain called them crocodiles—churning the water beneath them and Kat shuddered, saying the beasts had no thought but one:
hunger
.

They both kept their swords at the ready.

“We'll find an inn,” Heph says, and translates for Kat, who looks relieved. “We'll be back early tomorrow morning.”

They push their way down the pier, past sailors unloading goods: curved elephant tusks longer than a man, iron ingots, animal hides. In the harbor, merchants loudly hawk their wares: sandals, incense, colorful birds and a mind-boggling array of other things that blend into a bright-hued blur. The air smells of salt and hot stone, of aromatic spices and sour sweat, of fresh bread and roasting meat.

“Let's find an inn!” he yells over the noise.

She opens her mouth, but he can't hear her. She cups her hands to his ear and tries again. “Away from the harbor, please!” He nods and gently takes Kat's elbow so that they won't be separated by the crowd and become lost among the stiff-limbed statues of pharaohs twenty times the height of a man.

A beautiful young woman with thick black hair and bright red lips smiles seductively at Heph as she passes. As he turns back to watch her, she pauses, takes off her wig to reveal a bald head, and scratches it before slapping her wig back on. His mouth drops open as he remembers Aristotle's lesson on Egyptian customs: everyone shaves their heads to prevent lice infestations.

Kat suddenly stops walking. “Did you see—?” She looks around at the dozen or so scribes sitting against walls, writing trays on their knees, then shakes her head. “Never mind.”

“See what?”

“Nothing,” she says, “It's just there are so many strangely dressed people here, aren't there? Look at them.” She gestures toward two men chatting by the temple gate. They are bare-chested, and heavy kohl lines their eyes while their hair is a mass of tiny black braids. Wide turquoise faience collars adorn their otherwise bare chests, and pleated white kilts hug their slender hips.

She flashes another grin at him, and his heart rolls in his chest. “I'd like to see you dressed like that,” she teases.

There it is again, the jolt like strong wine surging hotly through his veins.

“And I'd like to see
you
dressed like
that,”
Heph says, nodding in the direction of two young women talking animatedly to each other in the street. Their sleeveless, sheer white gowns seem glued to their curves, leaving almost nothing to the imagination.

He expects her to banter back, to tease, to play. Instead he sees a blush rise on her cheeks as she stares at the ground. He shouldn't have said it. Why did he say it? But she started it, didn't she? Saying she wanted to see him with his shirt off? The hot surge drains away, and he's left with cold dregs.

That evening, torches light the courtyard of the small inn they found on a relatively quiet street. Though this inn is laid out like the inns he's visited in the Greek world—rooms on two levels accessed by a courtyard, with the stables and latrines at the far end—it's wildly more colorful. The walls are painted turquoise, and life-sized red-skinned men in strange headdresses stalk panthers and lions in profile. Even the short, fat columns are painted with human-headed beasts and magical markings. Around the courtyard, lanterns of red and blue glass give off a brighter light than he has ever seen from the ox-horn-paneled lanterns back home. Heph makes a note to bring some back to Alex.

The night breeze off the Nile has cooled the entire city, and an enormous full moon and dazzling glitter of stars paint the black sky above. The roast duck in front of him is lightly spiced with coriander, and for the first time since they've left Pella, he feels relaxed. Capable. Confident.

He takes a swig of wild yeast beer. The taste is fizzy, musty, and full-bodied. “Four days, maybe five, according to the captain. I wonder—Kat, what's wrong?”

Katerina has suddenly sat up, dropping her bread in the bowl of cinnamon sauce. “Do you see?” she breathes, her eyes darting to the corner of the courtyard. “There was a man. A tall man in a black cloak with a scarf wrapped around his face. I've seen him a few times, ever since we got off the boat.”

The beer suddenly weighs on his stomach. It is possible that the mercenaries onboard the
Prometheu
s talked about meeting well-trained peasants with spectacular swords out at sea and sold this information to the highest bidder.

They might be known. Either way, they can't risk it. Too much depends on this mission.

“Stay still,” Heph says, taking another sip of beer. It burns down his throat. “In a moment, we will both go to your room, but don't give away that we know.”

Kat nods stiffly and scoops up some more sauce with flat bread.

“We're probably just imagining things, after everything we've been through on this journey,” Heph says reassuringly. “Cheer up, Kat. You look as if you just knocked over King Philip's Nikosthenes amphora.”

Kat smiles, but her shoulders are high, narrow, and tense. “I've broken too many pots in my foster father's workshop,” she says, “to go anywhere near rare masterpieces by long-dead artists.”

A few moments later, he gives her a slight nod, and she puts down the bread. They quickly make their way to Kat's tiny room. There's only one bed, but since they will each keep watch this night, it doesn't matter.

Heph volunteers for first watch and leans back against the wall, sword by his side. He left the door open two handsbreadths, and now a bar of soft starlight filters in. The only sound, other than intermittent voices in the courtyard below, is Kat's regular breathing. Lying there so peacefully, her pink lips slightly parted and strands of golden-brown hair resting across her cheek, she looks so very young. Her fire, her intelligence, her courage are nowhere to be seen. She reminds Heph of Alex sleeping. The prince had the bed next to Heph's at Mieza, and often they shared a tent on campaign with Philip or out hunting. Alex, too, looks like a sweet child when he sleeps.

The moment Alex and Kat first met, when Heph was trying to have Kat arrested for cheating on the Blood Tournament bets, he knew there was something between them. The very air seemed charged, like right before Zeus throws a thunderbolt to split a tree. When Alex countermanded Heph's order and rode off with Kat to the palace, Heph assumed it was physical attraction. But now he knows that these two share a special bond, a blood-magic bond that makes them much closer even than normal twins. Something he can never share with either of them, or with anyone else either, for that matter. The thought leaves him feeling that the night is very vast, and he is very alone in it.

A clatter reverberates through the room, and Heph leaps to his feet, pulling the leather cover off the lantern. Perhaps not so alone, after all. The new light illuminates a tall figure in black robes standing in the doorway, hopelessly caught in a fishing net. The bucket of pebbles that he and Kat placed on top of the door has fallen, bringing down the carefully draped net with it.

Heph tries to grab the figure, but even though he is caught in a net, the man is strong, twisting out of Heph's grasp and knocking his sword hand so hard that the weapon skitters across the wooden floor. Heph launches himself forward, puts his foot between the intruder's feet and swings his leg in a half circle, causing the man to lose his balance and fall hard on the floor. Suddenly Heph feels a hard kick to his knee and comes down like a sacrificial ox knocked unconscious by the hammer of a priest. Now the intruder, net and all, straddles Heph, but his hands, hopelessly caught in the net, can't reach for a weapon or Heph's throat. Heph pushes him off and sits on his abdomen, his knees squeezing the hands against the body.

Kat appears next to him holding the lantern, and Heph notes with approval that she has two swords in her other hand. She hands him his.

“Who are you?” he pants. “Who sent you? Tell me or I'll cut off your head.”

“Heph, please! It's me!” The voice is female. And familiar. Somewhere deep down inside, it stirs up a cauldron's brew of guilt and desire. Heph climbs off and looks at Kat in surprise.

Kat stays back, frowning. “What is your name?” she asks.

The figure chuckles, a low throaty sound that reminds Heph of soft nights and whispering sheets. “Am I so forgettable?” the voice replies. “It's me.”