The Shards of Heaven (34 page)

Antony nodded, seemed ready to turn away, but then he stopped and refocused his attention on the legionnaire. “Vorenus, I…” The general blinked, appeared uncharacteristically uncertain. “Well, it's been a pleasure having you beside me all these years.”

Vorenus, uncertain himself, kept his face stoic. “I've been honored to fight for you, sir.”

“I hope … that is to say…” Antony stammered to a halt, then sighed and smiled in a kind of genuine warmth. He held out his hand. “Thank you, Vorenus.”

Vorenus took the offered hand and shook it. “Thank you, sir.”

Antony held the grip a few seconds longer than Vorenus would have expected, then let go. “You're a good man. A loyal man. Remember that.”

One of the Egyptian guards appeared from the darkness of the main hall and bowed to Caesarion and Antony in turn before whispering a report to Khenti's ear and then hurrying back into the dark.

“What news?” Antony asked, a new softness bordering on humor in his voice. “Octavian has breached the walls?”

“Only Titus Pullo to see Vorenus,” Khenti said, his face characteristically stone. “I've ordered him kept at the gate, sir.”

Something flashed in Antony's face, but it passed too quickly for Vorenus to read. “No,” the general said, waving his hand absently as if brushing his former orders out of the air. “Let him come in. I'm on my way out anyway.”

Khenti bowed and then disappeared into the darkness.

Antony watched him go before turning back to Vorenus. “Tell Pullo … well, give him my regards. He, too, is a good man.”

“Of course,” Vorenus said, unsure what more he could say.

“Good,” Antony said, once again looking out over the harbor. “Good.”

“I'll have a guard called to walk you to the Timonium,” Caesarion said.

“No, not necessary,” Antony replied, taking in the young man with a smile of gratitude. “It isn't far. I'd like to go alone.”

“As you wish,” Caesarion said.

“You've done well, you know,” Antony said. And then, before Caesarion could reply, the general reached out and clasped him by the shoulders, pulling him into an embrace.

Caesarion appeared to be surprised by the gesture, but he was quick to return the embrace, brief though it was. “I was raised well,” he said.

“Then we must once again give thanks to Vorenus,” Antony said when they parted. “And to Pullo, as well.”

Vorenus bowed slightly. “I will tell him as much, sir.”

Antony had the look of a man relieved. He inhaled the salty scents of the air. “I should go, then. Khenti no doubt has Pullo waiting in the hall.” He glanced one last time toward the harbor. “I think I'll actually walk down by the docks on my way out. It's a good night for it.”

Antony looked to them both, smiled, and then was gone into the darkness of the hallway.

“Vorenus,” Caesarion said when he was gone, his voice like that of a man waking from a dream. “You don't think he…”

Caesarion didn't have to finish the sentence for Vorenus to know what he was talking about. He was certain Antony had been considering falling on his sword since Actium. “Perhaps. There aren't many options left for us all,” Vorenus whispered.

Caesarion took a step toward the hallway. “But if he's really going to … shouldn't we go and—”

“No,” Vorenus said, reaching out to place his hand on the younger man's elbow and hold him back. “We shouldn't. It's his choice, my boy. It'd be more honorable than the Triumph. We cannot deny him that.”

Caesarion's face flushed hot, with anger or sorrow, Vorenus couldn't tell.

“Besides,” Vorenus said, deciding at last to be open and honest with him, “it could save your mother. Maybe yourself.” Vorenus doubted this was so—Octavian would surely parade them all in Rome, and Cleopatra and Caesarion, maybe even the younger children, were too much of a threat to be allowed to live—but he supposed there was at least a chance.

“But the children…” Emotion cracked the young man's voice.

“As he said: let them sleep.”

“I can't just let him go.”

“You can,” Vorenus said. “And you must. Perhaps he's only tired from the day. Perhaps we'll see him again tomorrow.” He tried to keep his voice light, whispered as it was, but even so he doubted it himself. He felt certain, in his heart, that he'd seen Mark Antony for the last time in life.

Caesarion's shoulders slumped, and the tension went out of his arm. The resignation was hard for Vorenus to see in one so young, one with so much promise and potential. For a moment he instinctively wanted to curse the gods for giving the young man such a tragic fate, but then he caught himself. No gods meant no fate. It was just open choice and random chance, that was all. That was all anything was. He'd been a fool ever to think differently.

Even as Vorenus thought about him, Pullo came striding out of the darkness toward which they were staring, his head instinctively bowing as he ducked under the final threshold. The big man was smiling. “Why so glum, you two?”

Caesarion seemed distracted for a moment, caught between talking to Pullo and peering back into the dark hallway, but then he, too, smiled, reaching out a hand in greeting. “Oh, nothing, Pullo. It's good to see you.”

Pullo took the offered hand, then stepped back to look appraisingly at Caesarion. Vorenus guessed they hadn't seen each other in many months. “You appear well, lad,” the big man said.

“And you, old man.” Caesarion's mirth seemed genuine as they fell into a familiar banter. A part of Vorenus was surprised how suddenly sure of himself the young man seemed, as if all was right with the world; another part expected it of him.

“Bah,” Pullo said, releasing his grip on Caesarion's hand to rub the younger man's head. “Not so old I can't still best you at arms. Your choice of weapon, too.”

“Pullo,” Vorenus said, coming forward to shake his hand, too. “Glad to see you.”

“And I you, Lucius Vorenus. I was able to see some of the fight from the walls. A tough thing.”

“Could've used you.”

“Yes, you could have.” It wasn't a boast, just clear fact, and no one treated it any differently. “I'm glad to find you both, though I didn't expect to find you still up, Caesarion.”

“Not just a call on Vorenus, then?” Caesarion asked.

“No. I'm sent for you both.”

“Didymus?” Caesarion's voice betrayed something like hope.

“Aye. He sends his regrets for being forced to send a big brute like me in his stead. But he's been busy trying to secure the Library should Octavian take the city.”

“
When
he takes the city,” Caesarion said, so matter-of-factly that he could have been talking about the weather rather than the destruction of his home, his life.

“As you say, sir,” Pullo said, falling into the old habits of a legionnaire.

“Pullo?” asked a girl's voice from the darkness of the hallway.

They all turned, Pullo already grinning despite his effort to look stern. “You ought not be up so late, lady Selene,” he said.

The ten-year-old girl melted out of the darkness, a thin shawl over her shoulders. “I couldn't sleep since everybody hadn't come back yet. Did I see my father just now?”

“Yes,” Caesarion said, his voice moving toward the fatherly when he spoke to his little half-sister. “He did well today. All the men did. Few losses.”

“He was headed down to the docks,” Selene said.

“Antony will be retiring to the Timonium tonight,” said Vorenus. “He didn't want to disturb anyone.”

“Oh,” she said as she came forward and wrapped her arms around Pullo's waist. The man bent down to return the embrace, his big hands patting her as gently as if she were a babe. “It's nice to see you, Pullo,” the girl said.

“Nice to be seen.”

“Things haven't been the same without you.”

“I imagine they've been better,” Pullo said, smiling as he straightened up and Selene let go of him.

“So the battle went well?” she asked Vorenus.

“It did.”

“How could it not with such men to lead it?” Pullo said.

“But what are you doing here?” Selene asked.

“Oh, I came to fetch these two,” Pullo replied, nodding his head toward Vorenus and Caesarion. “Didymus wants to see them.”

Vorenus saw that Selene's posture straightened. “A meeting? About the Shards?” she asked.

“I don't know what about,” Pullo said.

“At the Library?” Vorenus asked.

“No,” Pullo said. “At the temple of Serapis. When I left him he was already preparing to go there to meet you.”

“Now?” Vorenus asked.

“Right away if possible. I've probably tarried too long as it is, though it's hard not to do so with company so lovely.” He looked down at Selene like a proud father.

“Can I not come?” she asked.

Pullo's face softened toward regret. “I don't think that would be best. We're taking a chance traveling across the city at night as it is. Alexandria isn't as safe for you as it once was.”

“Someone needs to stay with Philadelphus and Helios,” Caesarion said.

“He's sick again,” Selene muttered.

“All the more reason for you to stay,” Vorenus said. “With your mother and father gone, Caesarion away, and Helios sick, someone has to keep this place in shape.”

“Besides, your father will want to see you first thing in the morning,” Pullo said. “Isn't that right, my boy?”

Caesarion smiled, but his face was taut. “I should hope so,” he said.

 

22

T
HE
T
EMPLE
OF
S
ERAPIS

ALEXANDRIA, 30 BCE

When they'd first left the palace, Caesarion had thought Didymus would be meeting them at the old temple of Serapis just west of the Museum, a triangular building raised where the Canopic Way intersected with the wide boulevard that became the Heptastadion and led out to Pharos and the great lighthouse beyond. But, as Pullo soon told them, Didymus wanted to meet them not there, but at the more distant Serapeum, the newer, grander temple of Serapis set high atop a hill in the southwestern, Egyptian quarter of the city. That massive building, the crowning structure of a three-hundred-year-old acropolis, was a destination for pilgrims from across the world, some coming from as far away as distant Rome to pray before its magnificent blue-stone statue of the god who blessed Alexandria. It made sense that Didymus would want to meet there, Caesarion supposed. The Serapeum had become a repository for many books that had not yet found a home in the Great Library. It was just the sort of place to find the librarian.

Besides, despite its sprawling size, the Serapeum would surely be deserted. The Roman siege had turned the once-bustling city into a place whose citizens locked themselves into their homes as best they could—from fear of the Romans and the inevitable chaos that would follow Alexandria's capture. Even the most devout worshipers of Serapis would surely be crowding the older temple in the center of Alexandria rather than the more famous complex along the south wall of the city.

Khenti had not only insisted on going with Vorenus and Caesarion himself, but he'd also insisted on bringing along a second Egyptian guardsman: a bruising braggart named Shushu. Together, the four of them joined Pullo in walking the silent midnight streets of Alexandria, dressed as simple, if well-armed, commoners. Caesarion carried only a dagger, but he could see that the other men were making no efforts to conceal the short swords at their hips. He wondered, as they walked, whether they wore the blades so plainly to send a message to anyone who might consider stopping them. Crime had been on the rise in the city, he knew, especially as the night patrols had grown infrequent due to disease, desertion, and death. As Pullo had told Selene back at the palace, the streets were far more dangerous these days.

Not this night, though: The darkened streets of Alexandria were filled not with roving gangs of thugs, but with a tense emptiness. Even the air of the night, loosely woven with scents of smoke and war, seemed to Caesarion expectant. It was as if the whole of the city was ready and waiting to meet its conqueror. Only when the little party reached the Canopic Way did anything other than an eerie silence greet their passing.

They were walking in a close group, Pullo in the lead, with Vorenus and Shushu to either side of Caesarion, and they had just turned the corner onto the wide and empty main corridor of the city—not far from the tomb of Alexander—when Khenti, trailing behind, abruptly signaled for a halt.

“What is it?” Caesarion whispered after they'd stood still for a moment.

Khenti was looking back down the avenue toward the Sun Gate, body taut like a spring. “I heard something.”