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My sword was at his neck before he could blink. Men revered Alexander for his royal blood, but I still had to prove myself. I didn’t begrudge these Thracians their right to learn who I was the hard way.

“I have a better idea,” I said, keeping my voice low. “How about I hide this blade in your throat and save the rest of us from having to listen to your flapping tongue. A mealymouthed Thracian mercenary doesn’t get to insult Alexander,” I continued, reveling in his quick transformation from leering bastard to terrorized foot soldier as my sword tip nicked his neck. I leaned in close. “Would you like to take back what you said?”

Of course, the cowardly ass nodded, fairly pissing himself in the process.

“Perhaps the
kyria
 . . .” I paused, waiting for her name.

“Timoclea,” she provided.

“Could better explain how she sent the Thracian commander to his death?” I asked. Timoclea’s brown eyes strayed to the well, and a slow smile spread across my face, although I kept the point of my sword cozy with the Thracian’s throat. “Let me guess. . . . Their captain never learned to swim?”

She lifted her shoulders in an elegant shrug. “The brute killed my slaves and cornered me in the house. . . .” Her voice trailed off, and I could well imagine what spoils the Thracian commander had availed himself of once he had her alone. Her chin jutted in defiance. “When he demanded the silver, coins, and jewels, I told him I’d dumped them into the well when you Macedonians arrived outside the city.”

“And then you accompanied him here?” I leaned forward so I could see down the well. It was wide and deep, but there was enough sunlight to make out a jumble of paving stones and, beneath them, what appeared to be a man’s leg, pale and fat like a dead trout. I grimaced and glanced back at Timoclea. “I believe you may need to dig another well.”

“What she needs is a grave,” the first soldier growled.

Gods, but these Thracians were thick-skulled and dim-witted. I wished I had a second sword to scratch this one’s throat. Where was Apollo with his plague arrows when you needed him?

Timoclea shrugged. “He leaned too close to the edge to catch a glimpse of my emeralds and pearls.”

Yet the paving stones atop his body were the work of a crafty matron. No doubt Hades was cursing the arrival of an ugly lout who only ever had a woman when he forced himself upon her. “The gods may yet smile on you, Timoclea of Thebes,” I said, lowering my sword to cut the thongs that bound her wrists. “I take you under my protection, for Alexander himself may wish to meet a woman of such rare courage.”

The Thracian idiots opened their mouths to protest, but I silenced them with a glare.

“And my children?” Timoclea asked.

“The girls too,” I said. The eldest reminded me of a younger version of Thessalonike, although I suspected if that were the case, she’d have helped to push the commander into the well and then celebrated with a plate of Delian honey cakes. “My sincerest apologies for the ill treatment you received. War is a grim business.”

Timoclea rubbed her wrists and beckoned for her children, nodding toward the angry black plumes billowing into the sky above the rooftops. “You soldiers destroy all you touch.”

“We’ve acquired the souls of butchers,” I admitted, trying to recall where I’d read that line of poetry. It really was quite good.

I sheathed my sword as we approached her gate, glancing at the mounds of corpses littering the streets. I swallowed a wave of revulsion. This was no fair fight of soldiers eager for Macedonian blood, but the slaughter of women and children.

“Close your eyes,” I commanded the girls.

They looked to their mother, their brown eyes dark with confusion. “Do as he says,” Timoclea ordered.

They did and I lifted them up, one in each arm. “Don’t look until I tell you to, all right?”

They nodded and squeezed their eyes tight. Alexander, resplendent in his purple
chlamys
and gleaming helmet atop Bucephalus, saw us then. Of course, old Ox-Head with his golden horns appeared unperturbed by the slaughter spread before him.

“Spare only the priests,” I heard Alexander order, his generals scattering like ants to do his bidding. The girls in my arms tensed as I set them down, their backs to the carnage.

“You can look now,” I said, then saluted.

Alexander gave a wry smile as his eyes flicked over Timoclea and her girls. “Lovely, but a bit too old and too young for me, Hephaestion. And I already have a mistress.”

Brilliant and handsome, charismatic, and courageous though he was, Alexander sometimes lacked a rather key trait: tact.

Ptolemy, mounted beside him, stroked his chin, looking over Timoclea like she was on the slave block. “I’d be happy to take her off your hands.”

“We travel the world not only to conquer,” I said, ignoring Ptolemy and giving Alexander a pointed look.

“You are correct,” Alexander answered offhand. “I travel and conquer so the world will never forget my name.”

“And so you will be remembered as just and fair,” I retorted, even as Thebes writhed around us in its death throes. “Before you stands a matchless Theban treasure.”

Alexander glanced about the citadel, but he must have determined that the killing, raping, and pillaging could go on without him for a few moments, so he dismounted, keeping Bucephalus’ reins loose in his hand while Ptolemy hovered nearby. “And who are you,
kyria
, that you have so captured Hephaestion’s attention?”

Timoclea clasped her hands before her as if welcoming him to a banquet. “I am Timoclea, the sister of Theagenes, who fought the Battle of Chaeronea with your father, Philip, and died there in command for the liberation of Greece. My husband died in that battle as well, leaving me to fend for myself these past three years.”

“She killed one of your Thracian captains,” I said, sensing Alexander’s growing impatience. “Lured him to her well with promises of buried treasure and pushed him in.”

Alexander cocked an eyebrow at me. “I assume he deserved it?”

“He did,” I answered.

“Rare courage for a woman,” he mused, rubbing his fingernails against the leather of his kilt. Crusted with filth and blood, they were in need of a good soak. War was a dirty business.

“Reminds me of a certain sister of yours,” I said. “Two actually.”

Alexander chuckled. “Cynnane has the courage of an Amazon.”

“And Thessalonike is a little beast. It seems a shame to see such courage put to the sword.”

“I agree, and I shall reward your bravery.” He nodded to Timoclea. “I grant you and your children your freedom, as a gift to my sisters.”

Somehow I doubted this Theban’s freedom was a fair trade for Cynnane’s dead husband, but it was too late to save Amyntas. The poor, doomed fool had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, married into the wrong family. Amyntas was lost, but the entire city of Thebes trembled with fear as she waited for the rest of Alexander’s swords to fall.

“It seems to me,” I said, halting Alexander’s departure, “that other Thebans might possess similar courage. The city is taken and the Sacred Band of Thebes is no more. Perhaps the inhabitants would serve you better alive than rotting in the streets.”

“Your heart is too tender, Hephaestion,” Alexander said, but his face softened. He surveyed the terra-cotta roofs spread before us, occasional screams making Timoclea’s daughters cower like mice. “I am victorious,” he said. “And thus I can afford to be merciful.” He beckoned to an approaching guard as he remounted Bucephalus. “Cease the slaughter,” he said. “The remainder of the city shall be taken as slaves. Spare the priests and the house of Timoclea.”

Tears welled in Timoclea’s eyes, the blatant gratitude shining there making me turn away. “Alexander,” I called. “One more thing?”

“I do have a battle to manage, Hephaestion,” he said, but he smiled at me from atop his horse. “What is it?”

“Spare the family of Pindar?”

“You and your precious Pindar.” He sighed, but his eyes sparkled with mirth. “I’ll save them, on one condition.”

“And what might that be?”

“That they promise to produce no more bad poetry.”

“Pindar’s poetry rivals Homer’s and you well know it.”

“Sacrilege!” Alexander shouted over his shoulder, laughing as he nudged Bucephalus’ ribs and galloped toward the citadel. Ptolemy followed behind him, but not before casting a lingering look at Timoclea, dark as a shadow and just as fast.

I watched them go, satisfied that I’d done all I could. Alexander was a man of extremes, burning bright as the sun over the rest of us mere mortals so that it often fell to me to rein him in, as pleasant a task as curbing Zeus’ temper. I’d been scorched by his changeable moods, but I was pleased enough with today’s outcome to promise myself a cask of my favorite burgundy Lesbos wine before falling onto my bedroll tonight.

And speaking of my bedroll . . .

I turned to Timoclea. “Now what shall you do?”

She rubbed her eyes, the first sign of weakness I’d seen from her. The vulnerability there made me want to cup her delicate cheekbone in my hand.

“Encourage my city to cooperate with your men.”

“To send us on our way as soon as possible, you mean.”

She offered me a wan smile. “Is it not one and the same? You seem a decent man, Hephaestion of Macedon, despite the company you keep.”

Beneath her ragged hair and ruined attire, there was beauty there, a touch of Aphrodite if the goddess ever found herself past the first flush of youth. After a day of killing and saving Thebes from being only a memory sung in the song of bards, I wouldn’t mind sharing that cask of burgundy wine, and perhaps more, with a woman like Timoclea.

I gave her the grin that never failed to make kitchen slaves eager to shed their
chitons
. “I’m so far from decent that I’d offer you more than just temporary protection, Timoclea of Thebes. A woman alone, needing a strong arm to protect her?”

“And you, a man in need of a woman in his bed?”

“Well, when you say it like that . . .”

But Timoclea of Thebes was no kitchen slave, and a piece of me would have been disappointed if she’d giggled and batted her lashes. Instead, she studied me. “And here I believed—as I think all of Greece does—that Alexander held the key to your affections.”

“Alexander and I learned the pleasures of the flesh together,” I admitted. This was a common practice, although typically it was an older man who would teach his
eromenos
about love. At seventeen, we had been deemed men, but like Achilles and Patroclus, our affection for each other remained constant even as we discovered the wonders of women as well. Alexander once claimed that only sex and sleep reminded him that he was mortal; add wine and books to that list and my vision of Elysium was complete. “We’re closer than brothers, but we’ve large appetites and neither of us wishes to eat from the same dish night after night.”

“I see.” Timoclea smiled. “While I don’t doubt that you could show an old widow like me a new trick or two, I have my daughters to care for.”

I’d expected her rejection, yet it still stung. However, I could have my pick of pretty chariot drivers and camp women eager for a roll in my tent, one of each even. Or perhaps I’d seek out Alexander tonight.

“Thank you,” Timoclea said. Then she stood on tiptoes and brushed her lips to my temple. “May the gods protect you, Hephaestion of Macedon.”

I gave her a cheeky grin, then mounted my waiting horse to follow Alexander. “Actually, I don’t think the gods know quite what to do with me.”

Her laughter followed behind me. Timoclea would return to her estate and raise her girls to sass their future husbands. And I would follow Alexander, as I’d always done.

•   •   •

W
e continued on our way after Thebes to Delphi to consult the oracle of Apollo before heading for fabled Troy and, beyond that, Persia, where Alexander hoped to lure Darius, King of Kings, into open combat.

We arrived at Delphi on one of the season’s unlucky days, at odds with the stunning vault of winter blue sky overhead and the crisp smell of cypress in the air. Yet Alexander had been in a foul mood even before we started marching.

“I don’t care for prophecies,” he said, approaching the famed Temple of Apollo, nestled like a hidden treasure at the base of rocky Mount Parnassus. The rest of his guards craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the fabled mountaintop. “I’d gallop right past Delphi if I could.”

“Prophecies are just words,” I said. “They can be twisted to suit your liking.”

“Tell that to Oedipus,” Alexander muttered. “Or my father.”

He was right of course; the power of words had ruined—and saved—many a man.

One glance at the homely woman waiting on the steps of Apollo’s temple and I was certain Alexander would have whatever prophecy he wished from her dry, cracked lips.

I, of course, was wrong.

“We’ve just marched from conquering Thebes.” Alexander wore his famous smile as he approached her after dismounting, the one that made everyone—even me—eager to do his bidding just for a chance to bask in its warmth.

“It matters not if you marched from Egypt itself,” the priestess said, crossing her arms over her board-flat chest. There was no doubt that we were addressing the Pythia, Apollo’s oracle, draped and veiled in sumptuous cloth of gold to honor the god of the sun, although surely even Apollo would have shuddered to behold her face. “There shall be no divining on so unfortunate a day.”

“Ah, well,” I said to Alexander, wrinkling my nose against the temple’s otherworldly, sulfurous scent. “You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for your prophecy.”

Alexander scowled at the Pythia. “You would refuse to scry for Alexander of Macedon?”

“That’s exactly what she said,” I answered for her. The priestess looked down her hooked nose at us, the effect marred by her pockmarked face and misshapen lips. It would have cost a fortune to muster the dowry to make up for her lack of Aphrodite’s graces, so it was likely that her family had married her to Apollo instead. Still, the cold fire that burned in her blue irises might have shriveled the manhood of any potential bridegroom.