Keeper of the Flame (32 page)

“I do not like this.” He scanned the coastline.

“Captured, you think?”

“If so, they may have reported our location. And even that I am present, without a contingent of trained soldiers large enough to protect me.”

Cleopatra resisted the desire to repeat that they should have stayed in Alexandria. She had long ago learned that control is better achieved through support, not criticism.

“Back to Alexandria,” he said, then repeated it loudly to the sailors. “We will wait no longer.”

The sailors lifted the anchor, the oarsmen bent to their tasks, and the galley turned and began its journey home.

The wind seemed to have abated some, and the Thirty-Seventh made to follow Caesar, to his approval. But they were still three stadia out when his expression turned to concern. Cleopatra saw the change and followed his gaze out to sea.

“What is it?”

Caesar jutted his chin outward. “They are waiting for us.”

Indeed, Cleopatra could make out ships on the horizon, but not whose flag they flew. “Roman?”

“You do not know your own army?”

She bristled. “The Egyptian army does not attack at sea.”

“But they have enough ships to engage us. They hope to take out the great Julius Caesar, and thereby destroy the courage of the entire legion.”

Cleopatra hid her amusement at the man’s conceit. It was, after all, largely justified. “We will cut them down without effort.”
Yes, my own people. It has come to this.

“We are not equipped for sea battles, Cleopatra.” Caesar turned on her, impatience in his eyes. “We have a fleet of foot soldiers being carried in ships, that is all.”

She gripped his hand. “Then we must use what we have.”

Caesar studied the horizon. “We will not engage them. Night will soon be upon us, and they will certainly have the advantage, knowing the coastline as they do.”

He pulled away to give instructions to the sailors. “Pull closer to the coast. We will put in there.”

But it was not to be.

One Rhodian galley, part of the Thirty-Seventh’s fleet garnered from the waters of Rhodes, sailed ahead, heedless of the retreat. And when the Egyptian army engaged the Rhodians, Caesar had no choice but to advance to her relief, though it was amid much muttering that she deserved whatever fate she met. But perception was everything in war, and Caesar could not afford to lose even one ship at the start of this one.

It was the closest that Cleopatra had ever been to battle, though she had ordered that many be fought, and even commanded her own army.

She stood in the center of their small ship, the smooth metal of a sword in her hand, thrust there by one of the sailors. Around them, ships engaged, and the sounds of battle rose from
the water. Yelling soldiers, the clang of sword on sword. Wooden boats cracked, bodies and crates splashed into the churning, darkening sea.

Two boats drew near each other, and soldiers streamed across in both directions, swords hacking, bodies flying upward and into the sea like the spray of water breaking on the reefs.

Cleopatra remained in the center of their ship, her feet planted but her back straight and her chin high. Whatever came, she would meet it with her sword.

Within the hour, the dead floated like fish in the water around them. Flames engulfed one of the four-decked ships the Egyptians had manned, another had already sunk, and a third had been taken by the Romans and all on board had been killed.

A Roman ship slid near Cleopatra’s boat, and Caesar jumped across to join her, grinning.

“We could have taken them all, if not for the night falling,” he said, brandishing his sword, then sheathing it.

She smiled in return, though the battle had cost her something she could not name.

They sailed in victory into Alexandria. The contrary winds had been defeated as well, and the Thirty-Seventh Legion floated past the lighthouse behind them.

Before they had disembarked, a message was delivered to Caesar. The Egyptian army was poised to attack, and the city ready to join their cause.

Caesar strode to the palace, and Cleopatra hurried to keep pace, one hand sweeping her hair from her eyes—and one hand on her belly.

Thirty-Six

W
hile Alexandria slept, Pothinus had put off from the small galley that had brought him to the harbor and climbed aboard a sloop manned by two Egyptian sailors, with Plebo clutching the sides. They slipped along the coast to a lonely spot in the Eunostos Harbor, then hoisted him onto the rocky shore to gather his himation about his legs and climb into the wet sand.

Attempting to ignore the disgrace of it all, Pothinus trekked through the dark streets, followed by Plebo, until he reached the place he had chosen for his base during the battle to come: the Library of Alexandria.

It was fitting, he mused as he climbed the shadowed steps, that he return here to the halls where he had begun his career in the city, a young scholar hungry for knowledge and eager for advancement.

At the top of the steps, he turned to survey his city, lit with only occasional torches at this hour but still beautiful in the reflected glow of the moonlight.

And of course, the lighthouse.

He raised his eyes to the behemoth that towered above them always, to its magnified flame that led ships to safety.

There is no safety, is there, Sophia?

His mouth curled into a smile. Even now, Shadin would be gaining entrance and taking the last piece that Pothinus needed to establish supreme authority, that little piece of theatrics that would outshine all the superficial charisma of those in the royal palace.

But the dawn came and Shadin had not returned. Pothinus
fidgeted over a light breakfast in the courtyard, then took to the streets to accomplish what he must.

What ships the Egyptians had would push in from the sea. The army would march from the east. And from the south, the citizens of Alexandria would be relied upon to provide defense. It was to the peasants that Pothinus went, to whip them into a battle frenzy and provide a plan by which they would jointly crush the Roman legions between them.

The gleaming white marble of the city, which blinded the eye and enchanted the visitor, gave way to shadows and filth as Pothinus ventured deeper into the Gamma quarter. Here, in narrow residential streets, there were no philosophers prating their rhetoric on street corners, nor politicians making and breaking personal alliances in gardens and courtyards.

Instead, young children, their tunics dirty and torn, kicked balls of hide and chased each other with sticks. Garbage piled and reeked in alleys, with flies buzzing and stray cats crisscrossing the streets.

But it is in the streets of poverty that the battle can be won.

These were the discontented people, the citizens who had nothing to lose by fighting for something promised.

Pothinus hurried through the district, breathing through his mouth to settle the revulsion of his stomach. He was anxious to gain the central square, conduct his business, and return to the Library, where surely Shadin would have returned with the Proginosko and Sosigenes.

But a man such as himself could not remain unnoticed, and by the time he emerged from the narrow streets of houses into the square, a following had sprung up and begun to press around him.

Pothinus cringed at the touch of dirty hands on him, yanked his arms from their grasp, ignored their questions.

“When will Ptolemy be restored?”

“Will we become yet another Roman province?”

He pushed forward, gaining the square where the veterans of Egyptian wars past had formed themselves into volunteer cohorts, ready for their orders.

His name spread like fire among them, and from a worn tent in the center of the square, a grizzled soldier emerged. His uniform fit too tightly around the middle, and he looked to have spent the years since his service in the company of too much wine and too many women.

This is how we will defeat the Romans?

But what he lacked in apparent fitness, Pothinus learned, the old soldier made up for in bitter acrimony toward the Romans.

They spent an hour bent over city maps, with Pothinus tracing routes over the papyrus, and Adrastos following with a dirty, callused finger.

“I am pleased with the works I have seen erected thus far,” Pothinus said, straightening. “The people have done well.”

Adrastos grunted. “We hear tell the Romans think we’re so fast at building up defenses, they think it’s them who copies us, instead of the other way ’round.”

Pothinus nodded. “The Alexandrians, above all else, have a reputation for extreme cleverness.”

“That’s not all we’ve got,” Adrastos growled. “Just let them Romans start with us, and they’ll see what we can do.”

Pothinus glanced through the tent flap to the veterans milling about the square. “These are all your numbers?”

“Hardly. These are the experienced ones, I’ll grant you.
But we’ve got a whole city full of men and boys ready to charge through the streets and hurl rocks from the rooftops when the call comes. We’ll be ready.”

Pothinus licked dry lips and nodded. “I will send word when you are needed. It won’t be long. If you need to reach me, I can be found in the Library.”

“Take care, General,” Adrastos said, and Pothinus suppressed a smile at the title, which pleased him greatly. “There’s Romans about everywhere, and all of them eager to put a dagger into a great man such as yourself.”

Adrastos’s warning repeated in his mind as Pothinus crossed out of the square, again to the pressure of the crowd. He glanced left and right, before and behind. Could one of these peasants be a Roman soldier who heard that Pothinus was in the city and feared the great effect that his strong leadership would have in the coming battle?

He shoved open a path before them and hurried back across the city.

The sun was rising beyond the royal quarter, and Shadin would be back with Sosigenes. A messenger greeted him at the steps to the Library with news.

“Ganymedes sends word. Rome’s Thirty-Seventh Legion had nearly reached the city but is detained by adverse winds still off the coast.”

Pothinus listened to the boy, his eyes on the harbor.

Not long now.

The wind tugged at his himation. He pulled it taut, spun to the Library entrance, and hurried in, exultation pounding in his chest.

In the Great Hall two men stood facing him.

Shadin, the bony soldier with the penchant for torture, and Sosigenes, the perpetually old man with a mind keen enough to pursue several disciplines in the course of one lifetime. And Sosigenes clutched something to his chest. A metal box.

A warmth spread through Pothinus’s chest, flowed up his neck to his face, and ended with a smile that felt like the sun rising.

The Proginosko. At last.

“Any trouble?” he asked Shadin.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Sosigenes glared at Shadin. “You will pay for what you did to that servant.”

Pothinus pretended to pout. “A servant only? I am disappointed, Shadin. I thought you would most certainly kill the woman.” He watched in glee as Sosigenes’s eyes flamed into anger. “Or did Sophia simply hand over the old man gladly, perhaps?”

“She put up a fight, she did. But she was smart enough to do what was best.”

“Yes, I see.” Pothinus circled around Sosigenes, his head bent to the old man’s. The ancient scholar kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, his arms clenched around his precious Proginosko.

“And I see you have brought us a toy, Sosigenes.” To Shadin, he waved a hand. “Find Plebo. He will pay you. Then return to your ship.”

Shadin glanced at Sosigenes, then shot his hands out to the old man in a feigned attack. Sosigenes jumped backward and Shadin cackled.

When Shadin had gone, Pothinus stood face-to-face with Sosigenes, alone for the first time in many years.

“You think this will bring you what you seek, Pothinus, but you will never be content.”

Pothinus laughed. “You have always been an expert with the numbers and the calculations, haven’t you, Sosigenes? It was I who knew the history. So let me explain this moment in history to you, my old friend. This moment when everything I’ve planned comes together like the gears in that box of yours.” He grabbed Sosigenes’s elbow and swung him to face the Library entrance, to look out toward the sea.

“Out there are Egyptian ships, armed for battle. And down there”—he pointed into the city—“are the Egyptian people, itching to destroy. And marching toward us even now, an entire army. We are about to crush every Roman legionary, every centurion, and even their general, between us. The days will soon be bathed in blood. We will take the city, the palace, the harbor, even your Sophia’s precious lighthouse.”

He drew up close to Sosigenes’s ear. “And at the end of the day, my friend, when you have given over the secrets of the Proginosko to me, I will destroy you as well. And that, old man, will content me very much.”

Thirty-Seven

T
he day was far spent when Sophia stirred from her place on the white cushions of the couch in her private chambers.

She lifted her head, disoriented, then let it drop again, her eyes blinking away the blurriness of sleep.

Ares slept across from her, on the opposite couch, his bandaged arm cradled to his side.

She watched him for a moment, his mouth opened slightly and his dark hair spread across the white cushion. The terror of the night flowed back through her, bringing with it the frightening ache that had gripped her when she saw Ares in that chair, blood dripping from his hands.

She pulled her gaze away, tried to busy her mind elsewhere.

Better to busy her hands. She rose from the couch slowly, her eyes on the sleeping Ares, but he did not awaken. On the table between them lay a basin of red-tinged water and bloody rags. She had brought Ares here last night to dress his wounds and keep watch. She would summon a physician today to be sure that no infection took hold.

The dawn had almost been upon them when she had finished, and they both collapsed on the couches and let sleep overwhelm.