He eyed me suspiciously. “Why is the queen interested in you?”
I returned his gaze without blinking. “You will have to ask her, captain. She has summoned me; I didn’t ask to see her.”
He looked away, then warned, “Be careful, Orion. She plays a dangerous game.”
“Do I have any choice?”
“If she says a word against the king—even a hint of a thought against him—you must tell me.”
I admired his loyalty. “I will, captain. I am the king’s man, not the queen’s.”
Yet, as I made my way through the deepening shadows of night toward Olympias’ rooms in the palace, I knew that she could control me whenever she chose to. I was hopelessly under her spell.
To my surprise and relief, Alexandros was with her. A slave woman met me at the door to the queen’s suite of rooms and guided me to a small chamber where she sat on a cushioned chair talking earnestly with her son. Even in an ordinary wool robe she looked magnificent, copper-red hair tumbling past her shoulders, slender arms bare, lithe body taut beneath the light-blue robe.
Alexandros was pacing the small room like a caged panther. He radiated energy, all golden impatience, pent-up emotion that made his smooth handsome face seem petulant, moody.
“But I’m his only legitimate heir,” Alexandros was saying when I was ushered into the room.
Olympias acknowledged my presence with a glance and gestured for the servant who had brought me to depart. She closed the door softly behind me and I stood there, silent and immobile, waiting to be commanded.
Alexandros was no taller than my shoulder, but he was solidly built, with wide shoulders and strong limbs. His golden hair curled down the back of his neck. His eyes glowed with restless passion.
“There’s no one else,” he said to his mother. “Unless you count Arrhidaios, the idiot.”
Olympias gave him a pained smile. “You forget that the Council may elect whom it chooses. The throne does not automatically pass to you.”
“They wouldn’t dare elect anyone else!”
She shrugged. “You are still very young, in the eyes of many. They could elect Parmenio or—”
“Parmenio! That fat old man! I’d kill him!”
“—or they could appoint a regent,” Olympias continued, unshaken in the slightest by her son’s outburst, “until you are old enough to rule.”
“But I’m old enough now,” Alexandros insisted, almost whining. “I’ve already served as regent while the king was off at his wars. What do they expect of me?”
“Vision,” said Olympias.
“A vision? Like an oracle?”
“No,” she said, in a slightly disappointed tone. “The kind of vision that excites men’s souls. A goal for the future that is so daring that men will flock to you and follow wherever you lead them.”
He stopped his pacing and stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“You must lead the Greeks against the Persian Empire.”
Alexandros frowned at his mother. “By the gods, Philip has been talking about fighting the Persians for ten years or more. There’s nothing new or daring in that.”
Olympias gestured to the chair next to hers. I saw that her fingernails were long and lacquered blood-red.
Alexandros sat.
“Philip talks about fighting the Persians. You will speak of conquering the Persian Empire. Philip uses the Persians as an excuse in his drive to bring all the Greek cities under his dominion. You will tell all the Greeks that no Greek city can be free as long the Persian Empire threatens us.”
“That’s what Aristotle told me—”
“Of course he did.” Olympias smiled knowingly.
“But the Persians aren’t threatening us,” Alexandros said. “Their new king is struggling to hold his empire together. They have no intention of invading us.”
“Little matter. People remember the tales of their grandfathers, and their grandfathers before them. The Persians have invaded us in times past; they all know that. Even today the Persians control the Greek cities of Ionia and interfere in our politics, paying one city to war against another, keeping us weak and divided. Only by crushing the Persian Empire can cities such as Athens be truly free.”
Alexandros gaped at her. At last he said, “You could be a better orator than Demosthenes himself.”