The Shards of Heaven (31 page)

The world spun. The sailcloth slapped against his outstretched arm. But the yard missed him, coming down into the water with a splash and at last breaking the grappling lines that he'd only managed to half-sever.

Just reaching the end of his swing, Vorenus had time only to smile before the flagship, finally released of the weight of the drowned trireme, abruptly rocked back toward upright, whipping him up through the air.

Vorenus saw the flagship's deck passing below him. Then he saw the storm-dark sky. Then he lost his grip entirely, the rope burning its way loose of his arm, and he fell, screaming obscenities at the gods, down into the frothing sea.

The cold water momentarily paralyzed him, squeezing the remaining wind out of his lungs and preventing him from taking in more even when he bobbed up to the surface amid the waves. He would not float long, he knew. His armor was weighing him down, and as its leathers soaked in the sea he could feel it all pulling him lower—like Neptune's own hands. As soon as the frigid shock of the impact let go, Vorenus took a deep breath and frantically began trying to unfasten the straps and binds of the armor, even as the weight took him back under. When the last of them came loose, his lungs were burning. He kicked his legs wildly toward the light above, breaking the surface to gulp down the salty air, his teeth chattering and his eyes scanning for help.

The other trireme, he thought. It must be near. I must have landed—

He spun in the water, saw the boat not an oar's length away. Glad for the numbing cold on his arm, he started swimming, screaming for Antony.

In response, a face—enemy? friend? did it matter?—appeared at the railing and saw him. Seconds later, a rope was flung over the railing, the frayed, chopped-off end landing only a few feet from him.

Grasping the line with shaking hands, Vorenus held on, his last ounce of strength threatening to fail him. “Just don't let go,” he shouted, to both his savior and himself. “Don't let go!”

Neither of them did. The man on the trireme pulled. Vorenus kicked. And then he was rising out of the bone-chilling water, the man gripping his soaked clothes and using them to pull him up and over the railing.

Vorenus fell to the blood-splattered deck, shivering violently. His rescuer stepped away, looking for a blanket, for something to put over his shoulders and his bleeding arm. Vorenus coughed and retched, his vision rattling along with his teeth, but then he looked up and saw—unmistakably, undeniably—the big shape of a man that could only be Pullo exiting the trap that led to the rowers' hold.

“Vorenus!” Pullo shouted, seeing him at the same time and rushing forward. “Antony! It's Vorenus!”

Vorenus could see blood smeared across his friend's face and chest when he got close, but the big man looked happy enough. He was still alive, by the gods. And the fight on the trireme's deck was over: Antony and his men had indeed somehow taken it.

“Pullo, dammit,” Vorenus muttered as Pullo helped him to his knees. “This is why I believe—”

“You need a surgeon,” Pullo said, frowning as he examined the rope-mauled arm. “Why do you always get hurt more than me?”

“Glad you made it,” Antony said, striding into Vorenus' field of vision. The thick curls of the general's hair were sodden with more than water, and his eyes were heavily dark with sorrow despite the confident smile on his face. “We've lost too many—though we've taken a ship, eh, lads?”

A faint, tired cheer went up on the deck.

Vorenus shook his head. “Go,” he said.

Antony's face froze. “What?”

Pullo had his arm around his back now and lifted him to his feet. When Vorenus couldn't seem able to stand, the big man just held him there. “Cleopatra,” Vorenus managed to say.

Antony's face turned away, toward the south, as if he might see something in the storm. “Go send her a message? We've lost our signalman, Vorenus. But she knows to enter the fight late: the second wave.”

Vorenus shook his head, more vigorously for the sudden memory of the ungodly—or was it godly?—wave that had nearly killed them all. Octavian's other ships, the ones he'd seen circling. They must have been driven back by the wave, but they'd return. Vultures always came back. They didn't have time. “No,” he said, concentrating to keep his voice steady despite the cold. Someone threw a blanket over his shoulders—a good feeling despite the weight. “She won't come.”

Antony's face whipped around to face him again. “How do you—”

“I told her to run,” Vorenus said, knowing there was no time for pleasantries about it. “If things turned bad. Told her to run. Break free.”

Antony's face grew red, a crimson of anger. “What?”

“The children,” Vorenus croaked. “Alexandria.”

“You told her to run? To
leave
me?”

“We need … catch up. Keep flying Octavian's flag. Push hard for the south. There's a chance—”

Antony recoiled as if he'd been slapped. “Flee the field?”

“Fight another day,” Vorenus said. “Get the children—”

“You coward,” Antony growled, his fist pulling back to strike.

Vorenus cringed at the impending blow, but he lacked the strength to move, only standing because Pullo's big left arm supported him. So when Antony began to swing, it was Pullo who stopped it, his free right hand coming forward in a quick punch that caught Antony squarely on the cheek and spun him around and down to the deck like a dropped sack of wheat.

“Pullo!” Vorenus gasped. “You can't … oh gods…”

Pullo hoisted Vorenus up a little straighter, moving some of the weight over his hip. “Bah!” he said. “I never really liked taking orders from him anyway. Let's get back to Alexandria, shall we?”

Without waiting for a response from Vorenus, Pullo turned around to face the stunned squadron of fellow legionnaires gathered around them. “We're going south,” he said. “You heard Vorenus: keep up the enemy's colors. Keep up the appearance. We're just a lowly trireme limping after the enemy, got it?”

The legionnaires, much to Vorenus' shock, saluted and began carrying out Pullo's instructions. The one who'd brought the blanket for Vorenus paused, looking uncertainly down at Antony's unconscious form. “Sir, what should we do with, um—”

“Pullo,” Vorenus whispered. “We can't—”

“Get him out of the rain, for one thing,” Pullo said. “He'll be in a bad enough mood when he wakes up. No sense adding a cold to it. Let's take him below with Vorenus here. It smells to the highest heaven down there with all those blasted rowers, but it's warm and relatively dry.”

Vorenus tried to help as much as he could, but Pullo still had to half-carry him down the trap while three other men carefully brought Antony along. The hold stank—they always did—but Vorenus was glad that Pullo was right about the warmth. And there were a few open rowing benches near the front. The bodies on the floor beside them attested to what Pullo had done to ensure control over the captured rowers. Vorenus ignored the dead, broken men as his comrades stretched him and Antony out on the wooden seats.

“Pullo,” Vorenus said after the other legionnaires had moved away to take positions between them and their prisoner rowers. “Do you know what you've done? At best you'll be dismissed from the legion.”

The big man smiled, nodded. “Just didn't think today was a good day to die after all,” he said.

Vorenus started to say something more, but Pullo had already turned to the rowers, his voice reverberating between the walls as he boomed orders on his way back toward the trap. “You call this speed? My one-armed grandmother can turn an oar quicker than you lot! Faster! Faster! You two,” he said to a couple of the watching legionnaires, “tell them to keep rowing for all they're worth or I'll come down and bust another head or two.”

The two legionnaires saluted as he passed by. The third looked expectant. “Me, sir?”

Pullo stopped at the base of the ladder, his first foot two steps high upon it. “With me, son. There's sails to get ready. We've got a queen to catch!”

 

20

R
ETURN
TO
A
LEXANDRIA

ALEXANDRIA, 31 BCE

Caesarion sat like a statue upon the throne atop the walls of the Lochian palace, the royal scepter upright in his hand, unfocused eyes stylized with black paint, the tall crown of a pharaoh perched atop his freshly shaved head. While his mother had been away he'd enjoyed the freedom to grow out his hair, but now that she was returning, he'd shaved it back to his scalp in accordance with custom. He would become annoyed with the practice, he knew, but for now, with the heat of the high sun adding to the heaviness of the crown, he was glad for the lack of additional weight on his head. Even with slaves steadily waving palm fronds around them, the air was dreadfully stifling. Helios, whose health had taken another downturn in the past week, had been too weak to handle it, so Caesarion had sent the grateful boy back to the cooler shade, along with the useless slaves and the rest of the platform party. Only Selene and Vorenus remained close to him now.

For his part, Vorenus refused a seat, preferring to stand between the two remaining thrones despite the obvious discomfort of the wounds he wouldn't acknowledge. “It's hard to believe,” the old soldier said as another cheer went up from the throngs of people surrounding the harbor.

Caesarion wanted to nod, but he didn't dare do so with the tall crown on his head. There were thousands upon thousands of people in sight; seemingly the whole of the city had turned out for Antony and Cleopatra's triumphant return. The wide surface of the harbor itself was awash with bright swaths of bobbing color where the cheering people had thrown flowers into the sea—to carpet the victors' path home. It was, indeed, hard to believe. “They'll know the truth soon,” Caesarion said. “The truth will come out.”

“It's known in whispers already,” Vorenus said. “News always flies ahead of the army.” He'd been back only a day—the stolen Roman trireme acting as a forward ship to inform the city of the pending return—and Caesarion was still having a hard time growing accustomed to the new tiredness in the older man's voice. Much had changed in the months they were apart. He wondered if Vorenus felt the same way.

“We've tried to keep it quiet,” Selene said, her voice stoic. That, too, seemed to have changed, Caesarion noted. Especially after what they'd learned from Didymus and Jacob. His half-sister seemed more and more a woman in a girl's body, even if that, too, was changing. Sitting here now her upright bearing might as well be their shared mother's as she sat in regal, divine impassivity and watched the lie unfolding below them. “But it won't last.”

Caesarion made a sound of agreement. “The traders already know of the defeat, and of Octavian's movements east, cutting off our allies one by one. We've bought them off as best we can, but it's only a matter of time.” From the corner of his eye, Caesarion saw Vorenus shift on his feet, and he thought he saw him wince. “Please,” he said, “I'll have a chair brought up.”

Vorenus shook his head, visibly stiffened. “Wouldn't be proper,” he said.

Caesarion let out a careful sigh, not breaking his impassive expression. Moving his eyes alone, he saw that Cleopatra's massive flagship was crawling past the mountain-like lighthouse at the head of the harbor. The ship's oars were in careful, patient time, and its decks were alight with gold and metals that shined in the sun. He had to fight back a smile. His mother had always been good at theater.

The glinting of the ship hurt his eyes and he had to look away, not for the first time cursing the fact that they'd not had clouds this day.

“Tell me again about the wave,” Caesarion said. “The one that destroyed the ships.”

“Like the wrath of a god,” Vorenus said. “Unnatural. Like Neptune's anger unleashed.”

“Poseidon's,” Selene said.

“If you like, my lady,” Vorenus said. “I've never seen anything like it.”

Poseidon's Trident, Caesarion thought, sensing that Selene was thinking the same thing. Didymus said Juba was looking for it.

“Some of the men are saying Octavian has the gods on his side,” Vorenus said.

“I think not,” Caesarion said. “I think Didymus is right: there's only one God. Didymus thinks He's dead. Jacob thinks He's just fallen silent. Either way, He has nothing to do with creation anymore.”

“You think this wave has something to do with this man Juba?” Vorenus asked.

“It might,” Caesarion said, glad that Vorenus didn't ask whether he agreed with Didymus or Jacob. “He was looking for Poseidon's Trident. Perhaps he has it. That's not the biggest worry, though.” Since they'd found this moment of quiet solitude during the celebrations, Caesarion had been slowly explaining to Vorenus what they had learned in Didymus' office. It helped to explain it to someone, he thought. And he trusted no one more than Vorenus. If anything needed to be done because of it all, Vorenus would be the man he'd call upon. It would've been Pullo, too, if he hadn't been forced to remove the big man from his service when he'd arrived in Alexandria in chains. Better removed from service, though, than the public execution Antony had intended him to carry out. Caesarion hoped that Antony would accept Caesarion's decision to exile the big soldier into Didymus' care instead. He was just too good a man to lose. And he'd saved Caesarion's life back in Rome, after all. It was only fair to return the favor.