The Shadow of Ararat (32 page)

Much of his small store of coin was expended in getting the chief scribe at the prefect's offices in the New Palace to find out where Dwyrin's unit was heading; the Third Ars Magica, a component of the Third Cyrenaicea Legion, was being loaded aboard ship to sail to Sidon on the coast of Phoenicia. If the boy was not on the rolls in Alexandria, perhaps he had met with his unit already and was well away from the city. Non-Imperial shipping to the embattled coast of Syria was nonexistent, and he could not well take passage on a troop transport. He had made his way back to the inn on the southern canal. Several sailors had been in the common room, and discussions with them had led Ahmet to take a ship back down the Nile to Heliopolis and then go by camel to the burgeoning port of Clysma on the Sinus Arabicus. Everywhere he had traveled in the lower delta, the Roman army and its
auxillia
was on the move.

So too here, in Petra. After shaving and performing his morning rituals, Ahmet went downstairs and found that the cavalrymen had eaten all of the breakfast save a few day-old rolls and a little porridge. He sat in the corner, where the Arab merchant had sat the night before, and ate the spare meal. After he was done, the innkeeper stopped by his table.

"Master Mohammed left a message for you. He is busy all day but will return in the evening and hopes to depart at first light tomorrow."

"Thank you," Ahmet said. "If it is not impolite to ask, where are the soldiers going?"

The innkeeper grimaced. His son was among the regiment that had finally marched away after leaving the common room and the grounds littered with debris. The worry the departure caused was doing him and his nervous stomach no good at all. "There is fighting in the north, in Syria Coele. The Persians are going to try to take Damascus. So all of the 'allies' of the Eastern Empire are sending men to fight at Damascus and stop them."

Ahmet cocked his head to one side; the townsman seemed displeased by this. "Stopping the Eastern devils would protect all of Arabia and Petra, would it not?"

The innkeeper snorted derisively. "You mean keep it safe for Roman taxation and Roman law! There is a Roman peace, true, but it is a cruel peace if you ask me. We are an 'ally' of the Empire, yet their tax collectors pinch us as fiercely as any Imperial province. Their gods are placed over ours, their language at the expense of our own. The young people—they think of themselves as Romans, not Nabateans."

Ahmet nodded politely. It would be the same if Persia conquered the Arabian provinces, save that with the Persians rode darkness. He shuddered in the cool, dim room. The priests of Hermes Trismegistus hewed to a moral code—one fiercely enforced by the masters of each school—and were very careful in their exercise of the powers of the unseen world. But the stories out of the East, from the Persian capital at Ctesiphon and beyond, did not relate any such restraint. The
mobehedan
of the Sassanid Empire consorted with demons and devils; they indulged in the necromantic defilement of the dead, they sought power at the expense of their own souls. Even in the placid sun of upper Egypt, the masters of the order would often wake, trembling, at the dark of the moon as the distant echoes of horrific practices in the East troubled the ether.

No matter; he would find the boy and return to the school. Though Ahmet thought that he understood his own purposes well, in truth his mind was a whirl of conflicting desires and intents. He really did not know why he had fled the school, simply that it was no longer the place for him.

It was three days before Mohammed completed his business in the city. All that time, more men, horses, and supplies continued to flow out of the Nabatean capital and up the Wadi Musa to the road to Jerash and the north. Ahmet continued to sit in the caravansary, watching columns of light archers and more horsemen pass by. Long trains of wagons, laden with barrels and crates, followed. On the afternoon of the third day, the priest considered what he had seen—close to fifteen thousand men had headed north. Given the thin population of the Nabatean hinterland, all desert plain and rocky mountains, nearly every able man and animal in the principality had been committed. If this same effort was repeated in the other cities of the Empire, the coming war would be great indeed.

There was something odd, too, about the citizens of the city of stone. To the unaware eye, they were a common-looking people—worn thin by the desert, browned by the sun, with dark hair and eyes. To the Egyptian, though, they seemed furtive. They talked little to strangers, or even among themselves. The nightly ceremonies on the mountaintop, on the Ad'deir—the high place—were closed to outsiders, and the chanting was indistinct to his ears in the valley below. There was an undercurrent of power in the city as well, something that constantly tickled at the back of his mind, though there was nothing to be perceived if he put his mind to searching it out.

Mohammed bustled in, followed by two of his men. They were swarthy fellows, with a grim look about them. Ornamented knives and short curved swords were thrust into their sashes. They were clad in robes of tan and rust. Mohammed sat down on the bench opposite the priest. His smile flickered on, then off. The merchant was tired.

"Are you ready to travel?"

Ahmet arched an eyebrow. He had been ready to travel for three days. The rest had done his legs good, though; they felt as if they had recovered from the trek up the desert valleys from Aelana. He would be well pleased to be gone from this city that crouched amid the red hills.

"When you give the word, Master Mohammed."

The merchant slapped a broad hand on the tabletop. "Good. We're leaving."

Two Praetorians, bulky in their red cloaks and plumed helmets, closed the heavy door behind Aurelian. It made a solid sound, sliding closed, and the acting Emperor sighed in relief. It was late at night, near the midnight hour, and he had just finished the day's business. Rubbing tired eyes with the heel of his right hand, Aurelian tugged his cloak off and threw it on a backless chair by the door. The dark-purple garment joined a haphazard pile of shirts, tunics, and other cloaks. The rest of the outer chamber was littered with dirty plates and moldy half-eaten fruit.

Aurelian snorted at the sight but ignored it. At home, on his estate northeast of the city, his wife and her legion of servants would have dealt with all of his mess much more effectively. Here, in the city, in the palace, however, he had banned everyone from his rooms, for they were his one small refuge of peace and quiet amid the chaos of the Imperial Court. Even his bath slaves waited outside the door until he was ready to go to the Baths.

As he did nearly every night, he thought of calling for one of his brother's concubines to soothe him to sleep with gentle hands and a soft, warm body. As he did every night, he shook the thought away. He was too tired to consider anything but the rumpled sanctuary of his bed. He kicked his sandals off, bending the copper clasps that held them closed, and sat down on the side of the large, elevated bed that dominated the inner chamber.

"Hello, brother."

Aurelian jumped at the soft voice and half turned, his right hand holding a bare dagger, reflexively pulled from its sheath at his belt. Maxian sat in a low chair by the window, a dark-gray cloak draped around his thin shoulders.

Aurelian raised one bushy red eyebrow—his delinquent brother looked even more exhausted and worn down than he did. "Are you all right?"

Maxian raised an eyebrow of his own. He had been thinking the same thing about his older brother.

"Yes," the youngest Atrean Prince said. "Do I look like you do?"

Aurelian gave a weak laugh and fell backward into the thick cotton and wool blankets on the bed.

"Gods," he said, rubbing his eyes again. "Galen makes this look so easy! I thought I was helping him before, but there are daily crises that I've never even heard of before. No wonder they divided the old Empire—I cannot conceive of trying to run a state twice the size of ours."

"I am sorry," Maxian said, guilt plain on his face. "I am supposed to be helping you."

Aurelian raised his head up enough to give his little brother a good glare, then fell back again, groaning. "No matter, piglet. Even I can tell that something serious is bothering you. What is it?"

Maxian stood slowly and limped to the door of the outer chamber. He ran his hands over the join at the center of the panels and along the sides. Then he returned to the chair and closed the window shutter, making the same motion over its surface. This done, he settled in the chair, uncorked a heavy wine bottle, and drank a long draft.

"Give here," Aurelian said, rolling over on the bed and taking the amphora from his brother. "You don't drink much, and never bring your own, so it must be very serious. Who is she?"

"Huh!" Maxian laughed, while his brother took a long swallow. "Not a woman like that. A friend died and I took it harder than I should have. It has taken me awhile to shake it off—I must apologize again—you needed my help and I didn't give it."

"Oh, I'll live." Aurelian smiled, his cheerful disposition beginning to show through the weariness. "I'll occupy my spare hours thinking of ways for you to pay me back."

Maxian nodded ruefully; he was sure that Aurelian would devise some particularly fitting revenge for this dereliction of duty. He scratched his forehead.

"I have work to do," Maxian said, meeting his brother's eye with equanimity, though his stomach was fluttering. "Galen's work. This business with the Duchess... do you remember?"

Aurelian nodded, putting his hands behind his head.

"Oh, yes," he said, "I see her every day—every day, my brother—and she scares me and impresses me at the same time. She seems to know
everything
that goes on. Never once have I put a question to her that she could not answer."

Aurelian got up, rubbing his nose and taking another swallow from the amphora. "I have no idea whether she tells me the truth or not, piglet. She could be concealing anything behind those dusky violet eyes. Each day I have to rely on her more, and that makes me very nervous. I know...
I know
—that Father trusted her implicitly. She and Mother were close... but, by the gods, I cannot bring myself to do the same."

Aurelian stopped, looking a little surprised at the depths of his feeling. Maxian nodded and took the amphora back, popping the cork back into the spout.

"I'll have to disappear for a while," he said, stowing the jug. "I'm watched all the time now, you know, just like you are. A month or two should do it—when I resurface, I should have some alternative sources of information for you and Galen."

The acting Emperor looked up at his younger brother, a half smile on his broad, bearded face. Maxian drew his cloak on and stepped to the window.

"I know," Aurelian said. "You've always made us very proud."

Maxian stopped, his hand on the shutter.

"Max, the day you came home from school with that caduceus on your cloak, that was about the happiest day of Mother's life.
Pater
was fit to bust too. I'm sorry Galen and I have to ask this of you now, but—well, you know how it is."

"I know, Ars," Maxian said, still looking away. "I hope you'll be proud of this too."

The shutter clattered on the frame and the young Prince was gone.

Dwyrin scrambled aside from the bulk of a ship crane. Men shouted around him as a great siege engine swung out over the dock, ropes and cables straining to control the weight of the iron-and-wood machine. Thirty men leaned into the lines that guided the engine down into the hold of the great merchantman. The day was clear and the sky a brilliant blue. A crisp wind off the waters of the Propontis cut the heat on the deck of the ship. Dwyrin climbed up into the rigging, his bare feet and hands quick on the tarred ropes.

From his new vantage he could see much of the harbor under the city walls. Hundreds of ships were jammed into the dockside and the quays of the military harbor. The dockside was a multicolored swarm of soldiers, sutlers, engineers, heavily burdened laborers, and officers. It seemed that the two sloping roads that led down from the towering walls of the city were crammed shoulder to shoulder with an endless stream of men, horses, and wagons. Mules and horses raised their voices in protest, filling the air with a great noise. The transport to which Dwyrin had been assigned also held two companies of siege engineers and one of
auxillia
. The Gothic mercenaries were helping the engineers load, their broad-muscled backs gleaming with sweat under the bright sun. Their long pigtails were wrapped around their heads like blond crowns. The engineer centurion bellowed orders through a bronze horn. The engine slowly descended into the darkness of the hold.

Dwyrin climbed higher and found a spar to sit upon. His bare legs, finally browned rather than burned by the sun, dangled over the deck thirty feet below. His right arm still throbbed with the pain of the Legion brand. He gingerly fingered it. The pain had been incredible, though now he felt an odd sense of security and belonging. This troubled him, as he had not even met any of his fellow legionnaires. He had been passed from hand to hand until an
optio
of the quartermaster's corps had dumped him on this ship with his papers and kit. All he knew was that the ship would leave tonight, and in days or weeks it would reach a place called Edessa, and he would find his unit.

The breeze tousled his pale-red hair, grown even longer now that he was escaped from the strictures of the school. For some reason the Legion had not demanded that he adopt the short cut of the legionnaires that he saw on the deck of the ship or on the quayside. He hooked one leg around a rope to steady himself and began braiding his hair back. Around him, the great port of Theodosius continued to swarm with activity like a kicked-over anthill.

"Get your backs into it, you lazy whoresons! Pull, you bastards, pull!"