The Shards of Heaven (12 page)

Selene shut the door, then tried to make her way closer in the black, trying to place her bare feet on quiet places. But it was too dark, and her foot hit a wooden staff that was leaning against the wall, sending it to the ground with a clatter. The curtain parted quickly, casting the light of a lit brazier across her, and the back-lit head of Didymus appeared.

“Selene,” he said. She could only see the silhouette of him, but his voice was only partly disapproving. “I think you're supposed to be in bed, my lady.”

Selene's twin brother pulled back on another of the curtains, peeking around their teacher. “What?”

“I'm sorry,” Selene said. She tried to look bashful and forlorn all at once. With care, she picked up the staff—it was the tutor's walking staff, she could see now—and set it back against the wall. “I was in bed. I just … I couldn't sleep is all.”

Didymus sighed, then he held the curtains open for her. “No sense leaving you there now,” the Greek said. “And no sense sending you back if you're already sneaking about.”

Selene tried to contain her smile and to ignore her brother's scowl as she stepped past their tutor and into the little study area. The brazier was in the middle of the space, and there were a few scrolls half-rolled on a table against the wall. Didymus sat back down on a chair and motioned for Selene to take another on the opposite side of the brazier. The three of them, she noticed, made a sort of triangle around the brass tripod, so each of them could see the other's face.

“We were talking of Rome,” Didymus said.

Selene's eyes lit up, and she leaned forward. “I was just thinking about Rome,” she said.

Helios huffed. “I bet you weren't thinking about Hannibal's tactics.”

Selene glared, started to say something, but Didymus cut her off. “More snapping and you're
both
off to bed.” His pale blue eyes fixed on each of the two children in turn until they both lowered their gazes and relaxed their shoulders. “Good,” he said. “So. Why were you thinking about Rome, Selene?”

“That's what they're talking about, isn't it? In the council chambers? That's what Mother said.”

“I suppose she did,” Didymus agreed. “I suppose they are.”

“It must be a very nice place,” Selene said, her voice quiet.

Helios smiled deviously. “Selene loves Rome. She wants to be a Roman.”

“I do not!” Selene startled herself with how loud her voice was in the quiet space.

Didymus motioned for her to lower her voice, shot a glare at Helios. “Rome is a city of wonders,” he said. “It's true. But to be Roman isn't everything.”

“You're not Roman,” Helios said. “You're Greek.”

Selene wasn't sure if Helios was being mean or being nice. It bothered her sometimes that she could have such trouble reading her own twin. Didymus, for his part, just nodded. “I am. But I've spent a lot of time in Rome. And I've known many Romans in my time. Rome isn't so glorious, and its people not so pure, as they may seem in dreams.”

Selene furrowed her brow. “But Father…”

“We make ideals out of our memories,” Didymus said, raising thin fingers to rub at his eyes. “Antony—your father—imagines a city that doesn't really exist. We're all this way. I remember a Greece far greater than it is. If you left Alexandria, you'd recall it with far more fondness than you have for it now. Rome? Rome is a place where no one can be trusted. Where nothing is what it seems.” His eyes were on the flickering brazier between them. “And not just Rome. The world is like that, children. Sooner or later, we all learn it.”

Everyone was silent for a few moments, and Selene found herself watching her brother. Like their Greek teacher, he was staring down at the glowing brass. Her twin had always been more sickly than she was—weaker, thinner, more prone to illness—but tonight he looked almost normal, she decided. The shadows under his eyes seemed less dark, and his cheeks appeared less hollow. When his eyes rose, he saw her, too, and he actually smiled. “Except us,” he said. There was a kind of pride in his voice. He looked over to their teacher. “And you.”

Didymus looked up from the light and smiled tiredly. His pale eyes took in them both. “You are indeed some of the best, most honest people I've ever met,” he said. “Rome would be fortunate to have any of you.”

Selene imagined being queen of Rome for a moment before she shook the silliness of the thought away: if any of them would rule Rome, it would be their elder half-brother, Caesarion. He was, after all, Caesar's son. If they won the war to come, it would be he who ruled the streets of her dreams. “Do you think we'll win, Didymus?”

“Win? We're not even at war yet.”

Selene frowned, but it was Helios who spoke. “We will be.”

Didymus shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. It isn't for us to decide.”

Selene had once overheard some of the servants talking about what had happened to the king of Gaul after he'd been defeated by Julius Caesar. “What's a Triumph?”

Didymus' eyebrows raised. “A Triumph? Where did you hear about that?”

“I heard that's what Caesar did to Vercingetorix.”

Didymus chewed on his lip for a moment, thinking. “It's a parade in Rome, meant to honor a military commander for a great victory.”

Selene's eyes narrowed. “They take the defeated king on it, too?”

“Yes.”

“What happens to him?”

“Children, I—”

“Vercingetorix was publicly strangled during the Triumph, Selene,” Helios said quietly. “So was Jugurtha after the fall of Numidia.”

Didymus glared at the boy, but he didn't disagree.

“She needs to know,” Helios whispered.

“Strangled?” Visions of their father and Caesarion suddenly flashed into Selene's mind. “But why—”

“Not always,” Didymus said quickly. “And not everyone. The kings of Numidia and Gaul, it's true. But it isn't always that way. And it's not something we need to be concerned about. We're not at war yet.” He tried to smile. “Besides, you're too young to think on such things. Both of you.”

“It's not fair,” Selene whispered. Young or not, girl or not, it wasn't as if she'd be spared the results. So why wouldn't anyone let her take part?

“No, I suppose it is not,” Didymus admitted. “But no one here is bound for a Triumph, anyway. If it comes to war, Antony and Caesarion will win. And we'll be safe here in Alexandria. Rome is a place of danger, but not Egypt. There's no place more secure. Our dear Vorenus sees to that.”

The mention of Vorenus cast a moment of happiness into the gloom. “I think it's neat Vorenus knew Caesar,” Helios said hopefully.

Didymus agreed, his long thin hair bouncing in the flickering light. “I'll tell you what. Caesarion and I found something about that today in our readings. If you'll promise to go right to sleep afterward, we can go look at it.”

Helios yawned, then coughed lightly. Selene hoped he wasn't getting sick again. “Not me,” he said. “I'm tired. Can I see it tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Didymus said. “Of course.” He stood, slowly, groaning as if against the weight of age. “I'll wish you a restful night, then, Helios. Selene? Let's take you back to your room.”

“Can't I see it now?”

“You promise to go to sleep afterward?”

Selene nodded vigorously, excited to know something before her brother did. “I will. Promise.”

“Fine. You'll have to walk slow with me, though. My legs are more accustomed to sedation than yours, I'm afraid.”

Selene retrieved the teacher's staff, and they walked together down the hall in silence, taking care not to disturb those in sleep. Selene walked respectfully behind him, her mind a confused swirl of Roman gold and blood, glories and triumphs.

So lost was she in her thoughts that she walked into Didymus when he stopped at his door. He looked down at her with a sigh, shaking his head, but she could see the hint of amusement in his eyes. Selene bowed her head apologetically, took two steps backward to give him plenty of space. Didymus appeared to think about saying something but opted to maintain the silence of the hallways and instead just rolled his eyes before reaching out with his left hand and opening the door.

He'd shuffled halfway inside, moving his staff from his right hand to his left so he could hold the door open for her, when someone spoke from within. “Do not cry out, librarian,” the voice said.

Didymus froze in place for a long heartbeat. Then his right hand, now free, slowly lowered until it was near Selene's level, palm downward, fingers outstretched in a sign to be silent and still. “Who's there?” he asked. “What are you looking for?”

“You,” said the voice. It was a man. Someone Selene was sure she didn't recognize. His voice sounded Roman, like Pullo's, but even rougher. “Please, come in. I've been expecting you.”

Selene, confused, watched as Didymus started to move, even slower than he usually did. His eyes never turned in her direction, but his thin-fingered hand twitched at her.

Away
, it said.
Run
.

 

7

T
HE
S
CROLLS
OF
T
HOTH

ALEXANDRIA, 32 BCE

The voice came from the shadows in the corner of the ransacked room. Didymus' mind flashed through possibilities of escape, of alarm. He opted for none of them. Anything might put the girl at risk. “Who's there?” he asked, trying to infuse his voice with a strength and authority that he knew he lacked. His eyes passed across the overturned chest, the scattered scrolls. Whoever it was had been searching for something, clearly. “What are you looking for?”

A scar-faced man, one of the Roman messengers Didymus had seen in the busy yard, stepped out of the dark. His hand held a short, bare dagger, and his gaze rested on Didymus with a kind of indifference—as if he were another object in the room rather than a human being. Didymus had seen such a look only once before, but he recognized the signs at once, in a flood of memory so sharp, so brutally painful, that he actually felt his stomach twist in revulsion.

“You,” the assassin said. “Please, come in. I've been expecting you.”

Didymus had to fight the urge to look to Selene, to scream at her to run. It would be foolish. If the man knew she was there she would never outrun him. The scholar's right hand was still outside the door frame, though, so he motioned with it—once, twice—flicking his wrist as sharply as he could manage without moving the parts of his arm visible to the room, to the assassin.
Get away, girl
, he shouted in his mind, hoping to will her away.
Go!

And then he stepped into the room, his hand reaching back for the door to shut it, to put one more barrier between the killer and the eight-year-old daughter of Cleopatra.

Selene was smarter than most people gave her credit for, he knew. Surely she understood. Surely she was already on her way down the hall. If not finding the nearest guard, at least sneaking back to her chambers, back to her room. Back to her innocent dreams of Rome.

“So,” Didymus said. “You come for me?” It surprised him how little concern he felt for himself as he asked the question. Even against the prospect of his own death, his greater concern was for the girl.

That he'd not always been so self-sacrificing, so caring for the children of Cleopatra, was the sickening thought he had to fight to keep at bay.

The assassin smiled, almost apologetically. “Not for you, no. Not for anyone unless it need be.” He pulled the blade back to a sheath at his side, tilted his head toward the simple wooden bench under the window. “Please, librarian. Sit.”

Didymus thought once more about whether he should raise the alarm—but he would be a dead man, he was sure, before help could possibly arrive. Most of the guards had been pulled away to the council chambers in the nearby royal court. Better, then, to find out whatever he could. Perhaps he could still be of use to his friends, even once-treacherous as he was.

Besides, he abruptly realized, the assassin hadn't identified him as the children's tutor. Perhaps it had nothing to do with them. “You called me ‘librarian,'” Didymus said, making his way over to the bench, trying not to step on the scattered contents of the room: his drafts of a volume on Aristarchus' recension of Homer's
Iliad
, which would take days to put back in order. What, he wondered, could the man have possibly been looking for? “And it looks as if you're in search of something. A book, perhaps?”

“Yes. A book. And not just any book will do.”

“Of course.” Didymus allowed his voice to swing toward patronizing. He gestured toward the scattered debris as he sat down. “Though it seems you're confused. I'm the librarian, but this isn't the Great Library.”