The Princess of Egypt Must Die Read Free Page A

I don't see him.
    At last, my father calls to me. I go swiftly because it may be the last time I ever hear the Pharaoh speak my name.
    I'm presented to my groom, Lysimachus, the King of Thrace. "Before this assembly," my father intones, "I give this girl to you that you may beget legitimate children upon her."
    Daring to peek at my groom from beneath my veils, I see a hard face with a furrowed brow and hollows in his cheeks. This stranger will be my husband. My king.
    He's at least sixty years old; his hair thins over his brow. He is old. I make the mistake of thinking he is also frail. I'm surprised when he grabs me hard by both wrists, his fingers digging in where Cassander's had been the day before. My new husband shakes me like a captive, for that's what I am, and a cheer goes up from the crowd.
    Then I am carried off into the night to be unveiled.
     
    Thrace is not Egypt. My husband is not Pharaoh. The land he rules holds no wonders. No pyramids rise up from the sand to amaze and inspire. Thracians are fierce fur-clad tribesmen who dwell in the mountains, climbing up to their fortress villages each night like sure-footed goats.
    "They are barbarians who must be
forced
to live like civilized men," my husband says to me in the early days of our marriage.
    It's one of the few things Lysimachus says to me at all. Like my father, he takes little notice of me. If there is anyone or anything my husband loves, it is his hunting dog. The hound is always close at his master's knee, peering up with open adoration, keen to amuse by fetching sticks or performing tricks.
    But the dog hates all others. Come too close to the king, and the dog snarls and growls. Try to pet the dog, and you may lose a hand to his snapping jaws. The king never scolds him for this. To the contrary, I think it makes him love the dog more.
    I'm given a banquet to welcome me as the new queen of Thrace. The host is Prince Agathocles, a youth of no more than eighteen years. He looks like Cassander, but with a narrower mouth and a haughty bearing. I worry that he might resent me as a replacement for his dead mother. But he welcomes me to Thrace with a toast. Lifting a goblet he cries, "To Queen Arsinoë. May she give comfort to my father in these golden years of his life."
    The guests all cheer to honor us, but I see that my husband the king isn't pleased. He doesn't like to think of himself as elderly, and he narrows his eyes at his son as if Prince Agathocles were a danger to him and not the bearer of his blood and his legacy.
    Nonetheless, the prince offers me a place of honor, and I'm obliged to take it. "My father is a hard man to please," Prince Agathocles says to me. "As I'm sure you've noticed."
    I lower my eyes. I don't want to speak ill of his father. And with my eyes lowered, I spy a young girl under the table feeding the dogs from her fingers. When I gasp, Prince Agathocles reaches down and hauls her up into his arms. "There you are, Bunny! Meet our new stepmother."
    Surely princesses do not crawl under tables to feed dogs even in barbarous Thrace! But I soon learn that like the king's favorite hound, this girl is allowed a very long leash. "She is my father's darling," Agathocles announces. "My father calls her his little bunny, so we all do."
    Bunny is a girl of twelve with fair hair who curtseys to me. "I am the Princess Eurydice."
    An unfortunate name. It's the name of my mother's rival. It's a name that makes me think of Lysandra. But
this
little girl, with her pink cheeks and upturned nose, could never be so cruel. I smile at her. She cleaves to my side, so giggly that I realize she's had wine. Girls aren't supposed to have wine. Someone should send her to bed. But it's my celebration and I don't want to make trouble.
    "Later, I'll show you the palace," Bunny says. "I'll teach you our dances and our songs. We'll stay up late."
    "I should retire early," I say, remembering my mother's example. "In the morning, I'll weave with the women in the