Keeper of the Flame (31 page)

He was beside Ares again in an instant, the blade on his arm. “Don’t know exactly when I’ll hit the spot where the blood starts to really spurt. But it goes quick then, don’t you worry. His blood’ll empty in no time.”

Sophia stomach clenched and she tasted bile. “Wait!” She held both her palms outward, her eyes on the knife. Her hands twitched before her—rapid, shaky movements she could not
control. “I will get it for you. The Proginosko. I will bring it. Do not cut him.”

“Sophia—” Ares tried to object, but it ended in a yelp as the soldier pressed the blade to his skin.

“No, no, I will go!” Sophia turned to flee.

“Not just the box,” he yelled behind her. “The old man, too!”

She was in the corridor a moment later, her feet rooted to the floor.

A wave of affection for Ares, feelings she had never known existed, surged through her heart. Ares, with his room full of books and paintings. She had never known that side of him. Ares, trussed up like a sacrificial sheep at the mercy of an executioner.

But Sosigenes. She could not trade his life for Ares, either.

Bellus.

With hardly a thought for their past encounter, she fled to Bellus’s chamber and slapped her hand against the door, fighting to remain quiet so Ares’s torturer would not hear.

“Bellus,” she whispered through the door. “I need your help!”

No answer.

She pushed the door open, entered, and called him again. Moonlight trickled meagerly through the high window, but it was enough for her to pick her way across the room to the bed. Propriety aside, she meant to shake him awake.

The bed was empty.

She did not linger. Moments later she was in the large storage room that had been converted into a sleeping hall for many of Bellus’s centuria.

Empty.

Frantic, Sophia turned circles in the center of the open space.

Why now? Why did they leave? After all these weeks of invading her privacy, now when she needed them.

Think, Sophia. His life depends on you.

She swept from the room and sprinted along the west corridor, to the opposite side of the Base, where the scholars were housed. The beat of her sandals echoed back to her like the frantic pounding of her heart.

She slowed and moved down the North Wing on silent feet, until she reached the room where Hesiod slept. A plan had sprung to her mind. Risky, but all she could think of before she feared Ares’s life would be forfeit.

The room was unlocked. She slipped inside, closed the door quietly and tiptoed to Hesiod’s bed.

He lay striped with the black and white of darkness and moonlight, his mouth open slightly with the gentle snore of the aged.

Sophia bent over him, touched his arm. “Hesiod,” she whispered.

His eyes flew open, big and round as the moon that peered through the window. “Sophia!”

“Shh. Hesiod, I need your help.”

He rose at once, grabbed his himation, and wrapped himself, then followed Sophia.

Three doors down she pulled a key from the pouch she wore and unlocked the latch that held the door to the scholars’ work area. She bid Hesiod to follow her in, and shut them both inside.

“What is happening, Sophia? Have the Romans found us out?”

“Not the Romans, I fear. I believe it is Pothinus, acting on behalf of Cleopatra’s brother.”

Hesiod growled. “That scheming rat has been clawing his way to power since he realized he would never have the mind for true greatness.”

“And now he thinks to achieve it through stealing what great men have accomplished.”

Hesiod straightened his back and lifted his chin. “What can I do?”

“Your mechanism. I need it. As a ruse.”

Hesiod blinked twice in seeming confusion, then his expression cleared. “I will get it.”

He crossed the room, and she followed him. “I am sorry, Hesiod. I know you have been working long on it—”

He shook his white head and unlocked an iron chest about the size of the Proginosko. “It is a hobby, a diversion. Nothing more. Nothing like—” He glanced at the table where Sosigenes worked. “It will not change the world.” He handed it to Sophia, who bore the heavy box in two hands. “This is perhaps its greatest purpose.”

“Thank you, Hesiod. Tell no one. And stay behind closed doors.”

“You are in danger, Sophia.”

She tried to smile. “We are all in danger, I fear.” She lifted the box slightly. “But let us pray this will save us all.”

Hesiod held the box while Sophia locked the door behind them, then returned it to her, along with a quick kiss on the cheek. “Be careful, my dear.”

She nodded and retraced her steps to the South Wing, more slowly this time, with the weight of the device in her arms.

At the door to Ares’s room, she paused, tried to fill her feartightened chest with air, then kicked at the door to push it open.

Ares was still tied in the chair, but his chin had dropped to his chest.

No. No.

She nearly dropped Hesiod’s mechanism.

But Ares looked up then and blinked through the sweat that ran from his forehead.

The soldier pushed himself away from the wall where he leaned and studied her.

“I am here.” She held the device to him. “You have no idea what power you are giving to someone who should not wield it. It is not too late.”

He laughed. “If I want to get paid, I need to deliver.” He crossed the room and took the box from her, the knife still in his hand. “And the old man? Where is he?”

“Gone.”

The soldier’s eyes narrowed.

“He has long feared the coming violence in the city. Today, I learned, he decided to flee to Athens. He left on a ship early this morning.”

The wiry man set the box on the floor and moved toward Ares, knife extended.

“No!” Sophia said, “I told you—”

He flicked the knife between Ares’s wrists, and the rope that bound him fell to the bloody floor. Ares jumped to his feet and turned to his attacker, one hand covering the injuries to his arm.

“Go,” the soldier said to Ares. “Go and tell the old man that if he is not here before I grow tired of waiting, then the lady is dead.” He bared his teeth at Sophia. “I have no use for either of you. It is only the old man I want.”

Ares hesitated, his eyes on Sophia, pleading for direction.

“Go!” the soldier said, poking at Ares from behind.

“I am telling you, Sosigenes is no longer here!”

She did not blame Ares. The boy did what anyone would have. With a last look at her, he fled from the room.

Their captor came to her now, wrapped a rough arm around her shoulders and dragged her to the chair that Ares had left behind. He forced her to sit but did not bind her.

Instead, he pulled the narrow bed closer to the chair and sat cross-legged upon it. He leaned his elbows on his knees, bent at the waist toward her, and watched her face in silence as though entertained by her fear.

And she did fear. For herself. For Ares. For Sosigenes. It came to her fleetingly that she did not fear for the Proginosko, and this seemed a strange thing to her.

The minutes ticked by. She searched for words to convince her captor to take the box and go.

She offered payment, more than he had received from Pothinus, she hoped.

She threatened, using her relationship with Cleopatra, and by extension, the Roman general Caesar.

And finally she begged.

He is old. Let him live out his final days in peace. You have the Proginosko.

But her words seemed to fall on deaf ears, and he only watched her, his amusement growing with her desperation.

And then they were back, as she had feared. If the books and the paintings in this room had come as a surprise, this did not. She knew Ares well enough that he would not leave her here at the mercy of a monster. And neither would Sosigenes.

“I am here,” Sosigenes called from the doorway.

Sophia closed her eyes and dropped her head.

“Ah,” the soldier said. “And you have brought a gift.”

Sophia turned and saw that Sosigenes had brought the Proginosko with him, clutched in his arms like a bulky shield.

Her eyes filled. Memories flooded through her. A storm at sea. Angry waves and frightened cries. The first Proginosko, plucked from them along with her husband and child. And now it was lost again.

The soldier would not even take the Proginosko from Sosigenes. He made the elderly man carry it himself, prodding him forward at knifepoint.

Sophia followed them into the corridor, with Ares at her heels. The soldier growled at her. “Any further, and I kill all three of you.”

And then the two disappeared through the lighthouse entrance, into the night.

Behind her, Ares shifted on his feet. “Abbas,” he whispered.

Sophia turned to him, looked at his bleeding arm, then through the doorway again. She had lost something precious tonight. Someone. But there was another, still here, that needed her attention.

For now, that was all she could do.

Thirty-Five

I
n the royal palace, the new day dawned with rejoicing over the fresh water sprung up from out of the limestone overnight, and consternation over the news that the Thirty-Seventh Legion, anchored off the coast of Chersonesus, suffered from adverse winds which kept them from entering Alexandria.

Cleopatra stood at an upper window overlooking the harbor, letting the sea breezes catch her robes and her hair and blow them backward. She closed her eyes to the breeze and imagined it bringing her everything she still fought for. Control. Of Alexandria. Of Egypt. Of Caesar.

Behind her Caesar swore mightily and slammed the table with his fist. The messenger sent from the dispatch sloop hurried from the room to the safety of the corridor.

“I need that legion, Cleopatra!”

She turned and nodded. “We do not have long before Ptolemy’s army, with Arsinôe at its head, arrives.”

Caesar joined her harbor-watch at the window. He nodded toward the lighthouse. “The device you suspect she hides is most intriguing, but the Thirty-Seventh brings arms, darts, military engines, provisions. And experience.” He sighed. “They were Pompey’s men, before your brother’s ill-timed assassination of that great man. And Pompey trained them well.” He gripped the edge of the window. “I need them here, not stuck out there, dying of thirst.”

“Always the water,” Cleopatra said. “Ironic. By the edge of
the sea, still we rely on the gift of the Nile as much as the deserts of Upper Egypt need her.”

“I am going to them.”

“With the Egyptian army on our border?”

“I will not be long. But the delay is too great. I must meet with Calvinus, general of the Thirty-Seventh.”

Cleopatra pushed away from the window and crossed to the bedchamber. “I am going with you,” she called over her shoulder, and pulled clothing from a basket on the floor.

In the outer room, Caesar was silent a moment. “I am flattered that your desire is to be by my side—”

She huffed to herself. She had no intention of giving him time to wonder if he could rule Egypt alone. “It is only fear that bids me go. With Ptolemy’s army so near, I am surely a target. I will be safer with you.”

Caesar stood in the doorway, his arm braced against the stone arch and his eyes on her, with that cunning look she had come to love.

“And Ptolemy,” she said. “Certainly they will want to take him from the palace, to parade him as their figurehead, to rally the city to their aid. We cannot allow that.”

“You would have me kill your husband?”

She dropped the dress to the bed and sighed. “What else can we do, Gaius? It is unfortunate, but it is the only way.”

His lips tightened for a moment, then he shook his head and pushed away from the doorway. “I will double the guard around him.” He disappeared into the outer chamber.

Because you are still playing both sides, waiting to see where the advantage lies.

The thought angered her. She stuffed a few clothes into a pouch
and stomped out of the bedchamber. “I am carrying your child, Gaius!” she said to his back. “And still I do not have your loyalty!”

He whirled on her. “You have more of me than anyone ever has, Cleopatra!” He crossed the room and grabbed her arms, squeezing tightly. “Do not push me to give more!”

She twisted away from him. “I will expect more, when I place your son in your arms. Do not forget that.”

His eyes narrowed for a moment, and then he gave her his approving smile, the one he reserved for her more ruthless moments. “We leave in an hour.”

They sailed out under the late morning sun, under the lighthouse. Cleopatra glanced up at the dark tower. Did Sophia look down on them? Caesar ordered the standing fleet to follow, assured that the land forces he left in the city were sufficient to guard the siege works there.

The Thirty-Seventh Legion rode at anchor a little above Alexandria, with an easterly wind preventing the fleet from reaching the harbor safely.

Cleopatra stood at the rail of the small galley they had employed, watched the fleet grow larger as they approached, and realized again that the might of Rome was such that Egypt could not win. Here was only one additional legion, and, combined with Caesar’s, it was easily sufficient to destroy the Egyptian army.

Yes, war was coming. And it was her people who would suffer. But she would be there after, to heal the broken pieces and smooth the way for Egypt and Rome to become partners in ruling the world.

They reached the fleet by early afternoon, and Caesar bid her stay where she was as he boarded the ship that carried Calvinus, their general.

She settled into some cushions in the center of the swaying
deck. She ignored the stare of the sailors on board and tried to sleep in spite of her anxiety.

As the afternoon passed they pushed closer to the shore, until they were near the coast of Chersonesus. Caesar returned from his battle plans. “I have sent some of the sailors ashore to find water,” he said, and dropped beside her. He flicked a look of disdain in the direction of the Thirty-Seventh. “It is all they can think about, apparently.”

But as the sun began its descent, and the sailors had not returned, Caesar paced the deck. Cleopatra watched him from her place on the cushions.