Return (Matt Turner Series Book 3) (38 page)

His sweat had mixed with a deodorant or cologne, creating some kind of magically delicious chemical reaction. She stole another whiff, and said, “Okay.”

And I don’t care if you’re in my head. Someone should bottle that shit, because
damn
.

He slid his hand back to her wrist, and she wondered if he could read her through the wispy little thread bracelet. He led her deeper into the blackness, their arms outstretched between them, providing ample room to walk normally without tripping each other up.

I wonder what it tastes like.

“
Shh
,” he hushed.

Mortified, she whispered, “Oh my God, shit, I’m so sorry, I−”

“
Shhhhh
-”

Matt’s shush was cut off by a loud clang at his feet, but it sounded nothing like a spray paint can, and it immediately struck something else, like china or a ceramic pot, and Matt grunted as his hand yanked off her wrist, and there came such a resounding crash—as if a tower of home improvement store shelves had collapsed before her—and invisible objects pelted her shins and knees, shattering glass struck her neck, cheek, and ear, while impulse clenched her body into an ungainly mass, stumbling backward.

The Canopic Road - Alexandria, Egypt circa 270 AD

Artist unknown

Hello Steward,

The voice conveys knowledge.

The scribe preserves a word.

A token holds the sum.

Alexandria, Aegyptus – 271 CE

Patra was wise to heed Barbillus’s advice. As dusk approached, mobs large and small roamed the city. Some sought to loot abandoned homes and businesses—or had already done so, evidenced by arms filled with valuables, or dragging trips of bleating goats—but other gangs carried with them rage and clubs or blades, hunting the streets for affluent garb.

Despite her humble stola and palla, wrapped over all but her eyes, Patra felt she’d be accosted at any moment. She wondered if her unadorned, recognizable face would stand out more than one apparently seeking to not be recognized. Once the last bits of twilight retired, she resolved to let her palla hang free, but to walk as one elderly and infirm.

Bypassing a crowded east-west road, she continued south to the first block of the dense Christian district, spotting a trio of women huddled and veiled as she. A relief to know her guise would be seen as unexceptional.

But as they approached on the opposite side of the street, one of the very women from whom she’d gathered confidence fixed her eyes on Patra. Then, collecting her company’s attention, proceeded to stop and discuss the passing stranger. What had struck the woman’s senses? Would they call out to the nearest horde of bandits? No, it seemed. Instead, as Patra diverted her eyes and sped her pace, she observed peripherally the trio crossing to intercept her.

Alternatives lacking, Patra hiked her stola and broke into a run.

“Steward!” one of them hushed in Greek. A young girl’s voice. “Wait! It’s Eugenia!”

Patra spun and allowed the three to catch up. Eugenia was with her mother, Lucia, and … not a woman at all, but one of the young men who’d been helping evacuate scrolls, her student, Tertius. Patra embraced all three, drawing them to her and clutching them tight as if they might float off into the sky at any second. She’d thought all three of them among those killed or trapped in the Musaeum.

“I’m so overjoyed to see you,” she said. “How did you escape? Were there others? Where are you going? Do you know where to find safe shelter? We should keep moving … get off the street.”

They checked for onlookers, and resumed walking as a single group.

“Steward Kaleb got us out,” Lucia said. “He showed us the … how you’ve been moving your-”

“Yes, I understand,” Patra interrupted. “It’s fine. The passage has served its purpose. Did he get others out?”

“He went back in, Steward,” Tertius said solemnly. “To fetch others.”

A jubilant crowd danced by waving torches overhead, singing a Coptic feast song.

“Don’t call me that for now,” Patra said to Tertius.

“Apologies.”

“So did he get more members out?” Patra knew the answer, but wished to know what else they weren’t saying.

“No, Stew—No,” Eugenia replied.

“Well, we don’t know that for certain,” Lucia said. “He forbade us from waiting. We saw nothing after leaving the Royal Quarter.”

Patra stopped abruptly, and turned to them. “Tertius? Eugenia? One of you needs to tell me now what you saw, heard, suspect, or believe.”

“We hid beneath the aqueduct to Pharos,” Tertius said. His big, wheat eyes fought to hold in tears. “As was one of the original plans … And a short while later, Philip came to check for members.”

“He told us to take a boat up the canal,” Lucia cut in. Patra could see she was pinching the back of Eugenia’s neck.

“What else?
Please!
I cannot beg for a single word more today!”

Tertius resumed, “He said the Emperor landed at the Palace Docks, and that Prince Kaleb went there to turn himself in.”

“He went-” Patra couldn’t breathe or swallow.

“…To get the Emperor to end the siege.”

How could he?!

They’d discussed and eliminated this preposterous idea days ago! Kaleb knew as well as any of them that such a gesture would be meaningless and fruitless—a gift to no one but Antonius, so he could drape a mutilated body from the Musaeum gate. Not one life would be saved; however, countless others would be devastated by the sight. A fleeting gift for a vile man, a lifelong curse for those who loved him. And Kaleb had wholeheartedly agreed.

He agreed!

Patra tore through the others, heading back toward the harbor.

“Steward!” Lucia called after her.

With her palla flapping behind her, Patra disregarded the beckoning shouts of looters. Fatal blows may have struck her from behind at any moment, but it seemed the prospects of further plunder outweighed the effort of giving chase.

Heedless to her path, she weaved northeasterly through the city toward the Palace District. Before she knew it, she’d run broadside into the Avenue of Knowledge, and the Musaeum’s west wall.

How long had it been since she parted ways with Barbillus? Twenty minutes? Thirty? Would he have yet assembled his group and weapons? Might they be arriving imminently? Were the murderous city guards still about? She retreated back to the side street of affluent villas, and into the cover of lush, vine-covered arbors and pergolas.

Now that she’d stopped, she found it impossible to catch her breath. Her body throbbed from end to end, and her pounding head did its best to remind her of her age. She noticed a small fountain in the dark behind her and went to sit. Splashes of cool water on her head and face eased her pain and fatigue as breaths came in more measured streams. Would she have even made it to the docks, or would she have collapsed in another block?

The pulsing in her head settled, replaced by the din of the city. Far-off cheers—or perhaps jeers—mingled with shattering objects, a constant pounding, and beneath it all, a growing rumble.

Patra raised her chin and pulled her hair behind her ears. A muted tone accompanied the percussive sound—a higher pitch, as if this section of the orchestra was building for their part. And then it grew even more like musical instruments, now discernable as individual beats, overlapping. It was armor, she realized. Armor, shields, galloping hooves, chariots, all approaching the Canopic Gate beyond the Musaeum and Jewish Quarter. Zenobia returning, triumphant? Or Antonius?

Tertius said Antonius himself had just landed at the Palace Docks. This wouldn’t be the move of a defeated leader. Quite the contrary. Which meant these were
his
soldiers preparing to enter the city, unopposed. It meant Zenobia had either been captured or killed. It meant there’d soon be nowhere to hide in Alexandria. It meant this was the last moment to accomplish anything in the city, including to escape it.

A voice from beyond the Musaeum wall. “Hurry!”

Feet pattering down steps, little feet among them.

Patra popped up, reinvigorated. She bolted from the small courtyard and out to the road, cutting left toward the Musaeum’s front gate. Her course matched that of the unseen others inside the complex, and when she reached the corner, a little girl sprang from the open gate.

“Wait, Cyra!” called another girl just as she too emerged. It was Theophila! Both of Philip’s daughters had survived!

Cyra slowed and silently observed the bodies strewn about the stairs, aglow beneath the starlight. Theophila grabbed her little sister, and turned to see Patra climbing the steps. And in that instant, from the Musaeum’s wide gateway appeared Barbillus, equipped with sword and shield, followed by another armed man, and another—five in all.

Barbillus’s gaze snapped right to Patra as she came, and then he peered back inside the gate.

“Just the two-?” Patra began, but two more stepped out—an adolescent boy, and young woman, followed by a desolate Philip, his head sort of lolling atop his shoulders, as if drunk.

Barbillus stepped down to her, a wall in her path to Philip. “Easiest assault, yet. They’d only left eight guards in front here.”

“Poorly trained guards,” one of Barbillus’s men snickered. “And yet they say we’re too old to join.”

“Every door was busted in by the time we got here,” Barbillus went on, rolling his meaty shoulders and rocking from foot to foot, invigorated. “Nothing pretty inside, but elsewhere, as you can see, these folks were the clever ones to hide, and
stay
hidden.” He followed Patra’s gaze to Philip, lingering at the top of the steps. Barbillus lowered his voice. “He just found his, ah, wife, I presume.”

Oh, no. Julia …

Barbillus peered down the Canopic Road. The Roman Army was now visible inside the walls a mile away, marching in wide ranks, and double-stomping every third step, broadcasting their victory. “You shouldn’t have come back here, but now that you have, get him and the others out, immediately.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m not done.”

“You’re on your way to the Palace Docks, aren’t you? Well, don’t bother. They’ve already got your friend nailed hand over hand to a pole down there. Balthasar saw it with his own eyes. Scourging him, branding-”

“That’s not all Romans did,” added a grim Balthasar. He was as tall as Barbillus, but fat all over, and with the dark skin of an Aethiopian. “Once stripped to the wind, he tried to pray in the Christian way, but they hauled him up, rugged him over a rail, and at least four different Centurions-”

“Enough,” Barbillus barked. “Hey.” He snapped Patra out of her horrified daze. “There’s nothing more for you down here. Take them, and go. And not just so we can one day have us a scholarly interchange. If you don’t live, we don’t get paid.”

“Patra?” Philip said distantly.

“I can’t leave yet,” she declared. “
You
take them. Don’t worry, Philip will pay you.”

Barbillus growled and eyed once more the approaching ranks. He grabbed her arm, his fingers wrapping all the way around. “I’m telling you, dammit, there’s nothing you can do for him! He’s dead!”

“It’s not him. It’s the Library. I need to burn it down.”

Barbillus gawked at her, speechless.

“You what?” said another of his men.

“I’ll do it,” Philip said, still in a haze as he descended the stairs to Patra. “I’ve already prepared the draperies and kindling.” He embraced Patra weakly.

Barbillus rubbed his neck, shaking his head. “I think maybe I’m just a bit confused about what stewards do-”

“We need to leave, Barb,” Balthasar said.

Patra kissed both of Philip’s cheeks, and forced him to look at her eyes. “You saved your daughters. They’re standing right there, waiting for you to take them the rest of the way out of the city. These two, as well.” She motioned to the other members—the woman and young man near the girls, both wearing anxious, pleading expressions. “Take them out the way you planned. You figured out all of this for us. I’ll be along right after you.”

Philip returned a wistful nod, gathered his girls and the others, and set off southward down the Avenue of Knowledge. Barbillus’s men dispersed as well, sheathing their swords and ambling casually away.

Barbillus stood over her, pointing after Philip. “Right along after is right. You’re going now, so that
I
can go now.”

“I don’t have time for this! What do you care? I told you, you’ll get your money!”

“It’s a fool’s errand, that’s why. Let that polished pile of manure come and burn the place down himself. You rob him of that satisfaction, he’ll seek it elsewhere.”

Patra ducked under his arm, and up the steps toward the gate. “I’m not robbing him of satisfaction. I’m finishing my job.”

Barbillus marched up the stairs after her, four steps per stride, and blocked her at the gate. “I get it … I see. You’re covering up. Another
performance
. Such irony.”

Patra stared up at him, seething, arms locked and fists balled at her sides. She didn’t know how far her trust in this man should stretch. A glance to the road—the Army’s front line was only one block away.