Keeper of the Flame (17 page)

Sophia had used the fuel-lift to haul Egypt’s richest soil to the platform, then carefully selected the finest canes for grafting. Years of careful pruning, combined with abundant sunshine and a lack of insects at this height, had overflowed her planters with a profusion of the soft red and pink beauties, nestled in glossy green foliage. Every morning four amphorae of water were hauled up in the lift and placed beside the platform entrance for her to dole out.

But late afternoon was not the time to tend or water. It was the time to enjoy. She lay back, closed her eyes, and sank into the softness of the cushions she had placed on the couch. The mingled fragrance of each variety, protected beneath the surrounding wall, seemed to hover just below the breezes. It formed a cocoon of scents and wrapped her in its pleasures.

She had seen Bellus five or six times in the few days since he had tried to explore the North Wing. Each time they passed with ill-hidden loathing, and then she escaped to solitude to recover from the distaste she saw on his face. Twice they had spoken, but it had been civil and polite. That must have been an effort for him. And how did such a man know Socrates?

Still, he had apparently abided by her wishes, keeping his men contained and under control, and staying away from the North Wing. She owed him some gratitude for that at least. She was aware she retained little power here, with Caesar holding the city and Cleopatra notably sequestered in the palace with him.

Yes, gratitude. Perhaps she should mention to him that she did appreciate his diligence.

Roses forgotten, she ducked through the doorway and turned downward, to follow the central ramp to her chambers. When she reached her door, she leaned over the short wall, and peered down through the cylinder to the distant floor.

“Ares!” Her voice bounced from the stone walls and dropped downward.

Ares was never far. His upturned face appeared.

“Summon the Roman to my quarters. Tell him I want to speak to him.”

Ares massaged the back of his neck as though the angle bothered him. “And what Roman would that be, Abbas? General Caesar, perhaps?”

“No, idiot. You know perfectly well who I mean. The centurion. Bellus, or whatever his name is.”

“Hmm. Yes, I think it is Bellus. Something like that.”

“Just go, Ares.”

She turned back to her chamber.
Someday I am going to replace that boy with someone who knows how to show respect.

Bellus arrived within minutes, barely enough time for Sophia to prepare. He stood at the door, clearly uneasy. He wore no armor, only a brown tunic, and no weapons strapped to his belt. His dark curls were a bit unruly today. He looked altogether ordinary, like a farmer or a merchant. Sophia nodded to him from the large chair placed at her desk. “Please, come in.”

He took a hesitant step, turned and closed the door, then advanced only a little farther into the room.

“Will you sit?” Sophia motioned to her pair of couches.

“Was there something you needed from me?”

“I need you to sit.”

He turned to the couch, and she thought she detected a rolling of the eyes.

When he had reclined, she turned her chair slightly to face him, aware that their relative positions put him at a disadvantage. After the rushing wind of the platform, the chamber seemed still and quiet with waiting.

“I wanted to thank you for the—restraint—of the past few days. I had not thought eighty soldiers capable of anything nearing civil behavior, but I see I was wrong.”

Bellus dipped his head. “The men have strict orders. I had hoped you would not be overly inconvenienced.”

“Oh, do not misunderstand me. You are an inconvenience of the highest sort.”

He turned a smile away from her.

“You are amused by me?”

Bellus studied her eyes. “Amused, at times, yes. More often, confused.”

“I am a mystery to you?”

“Not a mystery so much as a muddle.”

Sophia licked her lips and twisted her fingers together in her lap.

“You demand respect, yet do little to earn it,” Bellus said. “You insist on solitude, yet cannot seem to stay away from the Base where nearly a hundred men prowl.”

“I am making certain your men do not stray where they ought not! Making sure they do not steal or cause damage.”

Bellus said nothing, only pulled himself from the couch and went to the wall of windows, where the afternoon waned and yellow light pooled on the floor beside him. Sophia studied
the broadness of his shoulders and wondered how many battles he had waged.

“I have been longing to see the city from here.” He gazed out for awhile, then turned to her. “But you cannot see much of the city on this side, can you? Only the sea.” He regarded her, with the golden light behind him, and she watched his expression turn subtly from curiosity to pity. “Is there nothing you miss, secluded up in this place?”

Sophia’s eyes strayed to the stringed lyre that hung on the wall. A small wave of emotion rippled through her. “Music. I sometimes miss the music.”

He followed her gaze to the lyre and was silent a moment. “Do you never grow lonely?”

Sophia looked away and cleared her throat. “I have lived here in the lighthouse most of my life. My family has been its Keeper for generations.” She extended a hand to the room. “The wealth you see is a result of that heritage.”

He smiled, as though amused at her evasion of his question. “
‘Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods
,’ ” he said.

Sophia raised her eyebrows. “First Socrates, now Aristotle. I may soon have to revise my opinion of Romans.”

Bellus laughed. “I do not believe all the quotations at my disposal could accomplish that.”

“Come now, Pilus Prior Bellus, tell me how it is that a man so obviously learned has a place among those who seek to rule by force and not by reason.”

Bellus crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall.
“ ‘We make war that we may live in peace.’ ”
Sophia bit the inside of her cheek. “Will you continue to hide
behind Aristotle, or will you speak your own mind? Or perhaps you have nothing in your mind but the thoughts of others?”

The dark light she was coming to recognize as anger shadowed his eyes.

“Do you truly believe,” she said, “that a sword is the way to leave the world better than you found it?”

“Sometimes it is the duty of man to follow the orders he is given.”

“Then you admit that you choose not to think for yourself, and only to rely upon the opinions of others?”

“Better that than to care nothing of what others think.”

Sophia rubbed at her lips, then gripped the arms of her chair. “I need nothing from others—neither their opinions nor their good will.”

“Well, that is certainly a fortunate thing, since you will not listen to the first and have none of the second!”

“Do not pretend to know me, Roman. A few words of gossip in the city do not paint an accurate picture of me.”

Bellus had left his position at the wall and now stood towering over her. Sophia pushed herself to her feet and thought for a moment to climb upon the chair, if only to gain a few inches on him. She stood close to him, too close, and he backed up.

“I do not need gossip to tell me who you are. I have witnessed it for myself. You have your servants scurrying around the Base like ants, with you as their queen sitting high above them, immersed in your books. Do you even know what goes on down there?” He pushed away a curl of hair that had fallen before his eye.

“You dare to criticize my administration of the lighthouse? Do you know how many ships safely navigate into these harbors
because of me? Your own ship included, I might remind you. And if I remember correctly, you were the one who said that my books were my real wealth.” Sophia fought to control her breathing, but still stood with her lips slightly open and teeth clenched, unable to get enough air into her chest.

Outside the window the sun slid beneath a heavy cloud on the horizon, and the room darkened as though a pail of dirty water had been thrown on a warm fire.

Bellus took a step backward and lowered his head. “ ‘
Wisdom outweighs any wealth,’
your playwright Sophocles said. But I fear that all your books may not have brought you wisdom of the sort that brings happiness, wisdom that seeks company.”

Sophia sat again and rubbed her hands across her thighs. “You do not seem so happy yourself, centurion, even with all of your men and their loyalty. At least I do not have the condemnation of Caesar to contend with. Perhaps I am better off.”

Bellus dropped his gaze, sighed, then looked around the room. Slowly he crossed to a niche in the wall and retrieved a small oil lamp. Shielding the flame with one hand, he crossed to a larger lamp mounted on a marble column at the wall and lit the second lamp. She watched his steady hand at the wick, the flex of the muscle in his arm. The simple act of courtesy shook her more than his words. He replaced the smaller lamp and turned to her, his expression composed.

“My men have need of me below, Sophia, and I must go. But I will leave you with the words of Aristotle once more: ‘
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god
.’ ”

He lifted his chin to her, his eyes dark. “And you, Sophia of Alexandria, are no god.”

Nineteen

C
leopatra twisted her fingers through her long curls, secured them atop her head with a gold comb, and turned to get a glimpse of her profile in the bronze mirror in the bedchamber. She was dressed as a Greek, with a red mantle draped over a chitôn of pure white. Layers of jewels fell in heavy cascades around her neck, wrapped her wrists and dangled from her ears.

But is it enough?

The mood of the city increasingly concerned her. Today she would win them back.

She reached to arrange the red fabric around her shoulders, and saw in the mirror a glimmer of white behind her. Hands lifted the mantle and straightened it, then caressed her neck.

She turned to smile up at him. “You are ready for this day?”

Caesar shrugged one shoulder. “I am always ready.”

Cleopatra felt her smile fade. “It is important, Gaius. Crucial that we win their favor.”

Caesar ran a finger down her jawline. “Has anyone ever failed to fall under your spell once you have set your mind to gain their favor?”

Cleopatra heard the door swish open at her back. Caesar’s eyes lifted above her shoulder, then followed the newcomer’s path across the room. Cleopatra did not move. She waited for the intruder to become visible. Caesar’s eyes were still on her pretty young maidservant when the girl looked up from where she placed clean clothing into a basket beside the wall. The girl blushed scarlet at Caesar’s frank gaze.

Cleopatra watched them both, willing her expression to remain as light as a cloudless sky. The girl glanced at Cleopatra then fled the room.

Caesar’s attention returned to her, but she pulled away, leaving him grasping at her robes.

She crossed the room to retrieve several gold armbands and took her time adjusting them on her upper arms.

“You are nervous.” Caesar was clearly amused.

She lifted a leather pouch from its hook on the wall and set things aside that she would later require, all the while cursing her swirl of conflicting emotions.

She sought to control him, to use him. And yet at every turn she felt herself more at his mercy. Why should she be jealous of his eyes on a servant girl when his reputation as Rome’s notorious womanizer had been the thing that gave her confidence to first roll herself up in a carpet to be deposited at his feet?

“The loyalty of my people is my chief concern,” she said, as much to herself as to him. She finished packing the bag and straightened. “We should depart.”

He half-smiled, a look of condescension she had seen bestowed on men of lesser rank, and again she felt the tormenting mix of the intent to rule him and the desire to fall at his feet and beg him to love her.

She paused, letting her resolve harden, then lifted her chin and exited the chamber. She snaked through the palace, down the wide, sun-warmed marble steps to her waiting chariot, without a glance backward to see if he followed.

He can stay in the palace with all the maids he wants. What is it to me?

The two-wheeled horse-drawn cart that awaited her in the
street beyond the courtyard was driven by a beautiful slave, an Egyptian man who looked as young as she. She climbed up behind him, and Caesar joined her a moment later. She placed a warm hand on the slave’s arm, smiled at him, and leaned close. “To the Paneium, Namir.”

She had no idea of the slave’s name. He knew enough not to correct her. She glanced at Caesar, but his eyes were on the city.

They started off, trailed by the Roman soldiers who seemed ever-present around Caesar. The general breathed deeply beside her, as though the city itself invigorated him.

“None of Rome is so fine as this, Cleopatra. You will see, if you visit someday. We are always building, always improving, but this . . .” He stretched a hand south through the Gate of the Moon at the harbor’s edge, toward the granite-paved Street of the Soma, lined with the marble colonnades of the royal quarter. “Perhaps someday.”

They turned west toward the Paneium, down the Canopic Way, and made their way through the noisy heart of the city to the
agora
filled with merchants and philosophers, all spouting opinions.

They drew attention, as Cleopatra had calculated they would. She held out a hand to women and children and smiled at the men.

A royal outing was uncommon, and with Caesar at her side, Cleopatra knew the citizens would follow. They passed down to the Soma, where they slowed to a stop, so the two could pay respects at the tomb of Alexander and former Ptolemies.

Inside the stone building Caesar ran a reverent hand along the translucent stone sarcophagus that held the body of the greatest conqueror the world had known. His body, blurry through the stone, seemed to float inside its burial place.