0451472004 by Stephanie Thornton Read Free Book Online

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