My name is Herpyllis. I'm an unremarkable woman, but I've known remarkable men and women and lived through extraordinary times in exceptional places... So begins this story of a life shaped and marked by two men who are still household names: Alexander the Great and Aristotle. 349BC: After the slaughter of her family and destruction of her city by the Macedonians, Herpyllis is taken to their capital, where the Queen becomes her second mother and Alexander her first love. It is a man's world with new gods, but the women practise the ancient rites of the Great Goddess, held in secrecy and forbidden to men on pain of death.