The Tiger Queens (55 page)

Priests dressed in white
chitons
strained under the weight of a sedan chair holding a life-size statue of Zeus with his marble beard of curls, his massive bare chest, and a mighty spear in his hand. The priests set down the sedan, and next came Hera, swathed in layers of billowing stone linen and crowned by the
polos
of the Great Goddess, followed by their siblings and children, the remainder of Olympus’ pantheon. Behind the gods and goddesses of the sun and oceans, death and love, wisdom and war, came a thirteenth statue, bearing a striking likeness to the man of flesh and blood who entered the earthen floor of the arena. The spectators cheered wildly at the sight of my bearlike father, dressed in his customary greaves and boiled leather armor, his black beard trimmed to the sharpness of a spearpoint. I shrank back as his good eye scanned the arena, my heart thudding in my chest.

And, like the gods that surrounded him, my father decided he need not rely on mortals for protection. He raised his arms beneath his white
himation
, dismissing his seven royal bodyguards, with their distinctive scarlet capes, long swords, and sun-motif shields. Next, my brother Alexander and Cleopatra’s bridegroom entered the arena, two princes taking their places behind the battle-scarred warrior who had conquered Macedonia and united all the Peloponnese people under his rule.

My father strode toward the center of the arena, hiding well his limp from his battle-ruined shin. Three years ago, on his return from the Danube, laden with cattle, broodmares, and child slaves, he’d been attacked by the wild Triballians in Thrace and been wounded in the leg.

Now a single guard doubled back from where the others were exiting, a black-haired man in a scarlet cape whom I recognized as Pausanius, my favorite of my father’s royal bodyguards. Pausanius had spent much of his time guarding Alexander’s mother, Olympias, before her exile and had often slipped me salted almonds from his pocket. Now I thought that perhaps he was bringing some urgent message to Philip. I hoped it wasn’t of another revolt in the provinces. He came close to my startled father and
seemed to embrace him. Then silver flashed in his hand like one of Zeus’ lightning bolts thrown to earth.

A dagger.

Philip of Macedon, my indomitable father, with a face ruined from battle and a body riddled with sword wounds, gave a mighty roar. Pausanius stumbled back, then ran across the open ground and through the doors of the stadium, the same entrance through which my father had just strode, ready to be enthroned as a god.

No one moved as crimson stained the ground. It wasn’t until an ocean of red spread from the vulnerable spot in my father’s cuirass and down his chest that the crowd began to scream and my mind made sense of what I’d seen.

My father had been stabbed and now his lifeblood lured Hades to drag his shade to the underworld.