by Jo Graham
Antonius, of course, was not there. We had no word from him in weeks, nor any word at all from his expedition. In Alexandria, the days were warm and the fields green with grain. Away in the north of Parthia it was winter, and the winds scoured the uplands coming straight off the plains of Sogdiana.
Philadelphos was two weeks old when Antonius’ letter came. Wordlessly, the Queen handed it to Iras, and I read it over her shoulder.
“Oh sweet Isis,” I whispered. “-Thirty-two thousand men.” Mar-cus Antonius had lost thirty-two thousand men out of the sixty-six thousand who had marched against Parthia with him. “-Thirty--two thousand men.” The entire population of a middle-size city. “Four thousand cavalry.” He had begun with less than five thousand, not counting the Armenian allies. “Oh sweet Isis.”
I gulped for air, suddenly unable to breathe.
It was Cleopatra who put a chair behind me and helped me sit, handed me a cup of wine.
I blinked at her, ready to protest.
My sister gave me a tight smile. “I already know Antonius is alive. It is his signature on the letter.”
Iras was frowning over the letter still. “He says he is retiring upon Berytus on the coast, and that you must hasten there with supplies, that his men are near starvation and he will have to loot the countryside of his lands or yours.”
The Queen swore.
My hands shook on the cup. So few survivors from the cavalry. What were the odds that Emrys should be among them? “Sweet Isis, Epona, Mother of Horses . . .”
“If he loots my lands I’ll . . . No, I won’t. Because I am going to Berytus with supplies. We can assemble something in a week, surely.”
“You are two weeks out of childbed!” Iras exploded. “You can’t go dashing off to Berytus! And what about Philadelphos?”
“I have to, don’t I?” Cleopatra snapped. “Philadelphos comes too. The twins and Caesarion stay here with you, Iras. Charmian, you’re coming with me.”
I looked up at her, surprised. It would make more sense for me to stay with the twins and Iras to go.
“You have to know,” she said.
FLEETS DO NOT SAIL on a moment’s notice. It took closer to two weeks than one before we put to sea, twenty ships filled with grain, melons, live goats and chickens, wine and oil. Philadelphos was not quite four weeks old when we sailed out of the harbor, leaving Pharos behind us, our prows pointed northward. The weather was poor, and we held our course only by dint of the strength of our five banks of oars.
My prayers were nothing but repetition, holding Philadelphos in my arms while the Queen talked with her captain. Please let him be alive, please let him be alive, please let him be alive.
I SLEPT, and in my dreams there were raging seas. A black ship struggled up and down each wave, tossed by the storm. I dreamed a gale at sea, and Dion as he had been as a youth standing by the rail, serene and clear-eyed, while a wave gathered at his back, green and crested with white foam.
I screamed aloud to him, but the wind carried away my voice, whipping my black veil around me while the wave crashed over him and took him.
I should have been swept away myself, but Marcus Agrippa steadied me against the sea, his arms around me. “The wind is fair for Egypt,” he said.
“No!” I shouted, not certain what I denied. I turned in his arms, and there he stood, sure and unharmed by the tempest, older than I had last seen him. “You did not come to Egypt.”
Like visions in glass, everything dissolved around us, leaving instead stones, and the courtyard of a palace with high roofs, each one painted a different bright color. “You ended here.” There was the distant sound of cheers, as though somewhere nearby games were in progress. Above us, the blue sky of Persia arched, and we breathed the cool, fresh air of the mountains.
He held my forearms. His eyes were sad. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to leave so much undone. I won’t, this time.”
“How can you serve Octavian?” I asked. “Marcus, you are better than this.”
“I am a sword,” he said, “as I was born to be. Do you ask the sword who it serves?”
“You are a man,” I said, “and you may choose.”
“Octavian and I, we will make Rome great,” he said. “We will dress her in marble and bring her all of the marvels of the world.”
“At what cost?”
He let go of me then, walked a few steps away and turned, looking up at the pitched roofs, the mountains behind. His brow furrowed, as though he half-recognized it. “What is this place?”
“A reflection,” I said sadly. “Ecbatana as it was when you died there three hundred years ago. A memory. A scar in the memory of the world. We all remember, we Companions. It waits for all of us, as does Babylon.”
“Can you name me, then?”
I nodded, my eyes filling. “Hephaistion.” Alexander’s beloved general.
Marcus threw back his head, his face solemn, as though drinking in the air. The light gilded his face, his closed eyelids.
“Octavian is not your Alexander,” I said, and knew in that moment what it was that held him. And how should it not? The dream of a life completed was a powerful thing, that he might finish what he had begun at Alexander’s right hand, a life too soon cut short.
“I know,” he said, and gave me a rueful smile. “Caesar passed out of the world before I was hardly in it, with too much age between us for him to give me a second glance, Antonius at his right hand instead of me. I was born too late, my friend. And I shall walk through this world all of my life knowing that I have missed the mark.”
“And so instead you will have a Triumph on my bones,” I said bitterly. “I was never very much to you, a beautiful face that caught your desire once.”
He laid his hand along the side of my face. “Always more than that. You are always temptation, a beautiful thing unknowable and within reach, seeming simple and yet labyrinthine enough to lose myself in forever. Will I ever know you? I wonder.”
“If you walk the labyrinth with me,” I said, and blinked back tears. “You did once, long ago. Set things right, Marcus. You still can. It is within your power. Not Octavian, but Caesarion. Walk the labyrinth beneath Mount Vesuvius with Caesar’s son as his faithful Companion, and come forth by day to a world made new, Egypt and Rome joined in alliance, joined in his person in sacred marriage. The power is yours to bring that future into being!”
Marcus shook his head. “You know I can’t,” he said.
“I know you won’t.”
He let go of me, stepped back as solemnly as a boy in a choir. “Will I see you again?’
“In Babylon,” I said, and the word was ashes in my mouth.
WE MADE BERYTUS in bad weather, not long after the turning of the year. The Queen went ashore immediately, to the citadel where Antonius had made his headquarters, a black cloak pulled tight against the rain.
Antonius’ chamber was dark. The curtains were drawn because of the wet, and there were too few lamps. When the guard announced Queen Cleopatra he stood up, swaying, like a man who has seen a spirit. Indeed, she must have seemed like one, with raindrops caught in her hair like jewels, and her face pale and white, the shadows around her eyes dark.
“Cleopatra,” he said, and caught at the edge of the table to steady himself. His handsome face was worn and unshaven, and he looked ten years older, not a vigorous forty-eight, but closer to sixty.
Whatever she had meant to say died on her lips, and instead she ran to him and fell upon him, her cloak spreading like the wings of night around them. He bent his head to hers, and I saw him shake as she gathered his hands in hers.
“You may go,” she said to me and the guard, and Antonius said nothing at all.
The guard shrugged at me, and we withdrew, him taking up his station by the door. My hands were shaking too.
“Do you know a praefectus of cavalry?” I asked him. “A man called Aurelianus? He was with Antonius in Parthia.”
The guard shook his head
slowly, and I could read the stark sympathy in his face. “I don’t know anyone named that,” he said. “But, Domina, you should know that almost none of the cavalry came back.”
I nodded, biting my lip so that the tears would not come. “Do you know a man named Sigismund? One of the Imperator’s bodyguards. He’s a good friend of Aurelianus, and if anyone would know, it’s him.”
The guard broke into a smile, which I noticed was now missing all of his front teeth. “I do know him! He’s in the hospital, two floors down on the ground floor behind the kitchens. We wouldn’t be on guard duty if all the bodyguards weren’t dead or in the hospital.”
“I see,” I said. “Down?”
“The stairs are at the end,” he said, pointing.
I ran.
SIGISMUND WAS PROPPED UP on a cot at the far end, leaning over a dice game on a little table someone had pulled up. I saw him cast and for a moment wondered what seemed so different. Then I realized he was casting left-handed. His right arm ended above the elbow.
I must have made some sound, because the entire room turned and stared at me, some fifty men. At least, every man who was capable of turning and staring.
I’m not sure how I crossed the room to Sigismund, but somehow I was sitting on the end of his bed, clasping his good hand between mine while all his fellows looked on, whistling and laughing.
“What happened to him, Sigismund?” I begged. “Where is Emrys?”
“On duty down by the picket lines,” Sigismund said confusedly, and I started crying.
SIGISMUND HAD BEEN ONE OF THE LAST wounded, he said, when the heavy Parthian cataphracts had pinned them against the river and punched through the tortoise of the Third Gallica Legion. He’d gone down fighting beside Antonius, who fought like a man possessed.
“A berserker in his rage,” Sigismund said with satisfaction in his voice. “He’d made a mess and he was going to get us out of it or die trying. Covered me with his own shield, for all I’m his bodyguard. We’d have been dead if the light cavalry hadn’t charged in among the cataphracts, stinging like bees, all three or four hundred of them we had left. They held them off until we could cross the river. And the cataphracts didn’t come after us. Didn’t fancy a river crossing with horses in full armor, with infantry on the other side waiting.” I had brought him some beer, and he drank slowly, his left hand steady as always. “You should have seen Emrys, Charmian. He’s so mild and calm that you don’t expect it, when he gets that gray look of passion in his face, utterly beyond fear. Valkyries must have those eyes. As though they’ve seen a thousand fields.”
“I know the look you mean,” I said, blinking back tears.
“He wrote to you and Dion both,” Sigismund said. “When we got here. But the letters must have crossed you on the way. How did you get here so fast?”
“The Queen can move when she must,” I said. “And two weeks out of childbed.”
“Well, the little boy will cheer Antonius,” Sigismund said. “And for me, I’m well enough, all things considered. There’s a bonus for my arm on top of my discharge, and as soon as the doctors say I’m fit, I’m gone. This was the last campaign for me. I’m through.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
He shrugged, and I knew the world would end before he didn’t put a brave face on it. “It’s my fate,” he said. “I hope Mucilla will still have me. If so, look for me next time you’re in Rome. A little tavern in the Subura, under the shadow of the Esquiline Hill.”
“I’ll look for you, Sigismund,” I promised.
EMRYS CAME IN from the rain and checked.
Before he could even take off his cloak my arms were around him, saying incomprehensible things, squeezing him to make sure he was real.
He bent his head over mine, his arms around me, and I felt how thin he was, and how beneath his leathers he shivered. “I’m coming home,” he said.
I STAYED ASHORE that night, as the Queen wanted to. I had Philadelphos in the room next to the one she and Antonius had, to watch over his sleep and to rouse her when he was hungry. He nursed several times a night, and should also have to be changed at least once.
In the fourth hour of the night I sat wakeful while Philadelphos snored softly against my neck. Emrys slept in my bed. I watched him sleep, the slow rise and fall of his chest, the sweep of his lashes against his cheek. My heart was full of thanksgiving. So few of the cavalry had returned. His hands twitched in sleep, holding invisible reins.
Cleopatra opened the door, her robe loose around her. She looked exhausted, her eyes circled dark. And why should she not be, a woman with a month-old baby who has come to the end of a long journey to find that nothing is as it should be?
“Is he still asleep?”
I nodded. Philadelphos had not stirred yet.
“I’ll take him,” she whispered, holding out her arms. “He can come in with us, and you can lie down.”
“I don’t need . . .”
My sister bent and kissed my brow. “Tend your lover, Charmian. I’ll tend my child. Get some rest.”
I nodded, my eyes filling with tears. “Good night, sister,” I whispered as I carefully passed her Philadelphos.
I heard the door close as I lay down beside Emrys, felt him flinch in his sleep. “There now, darling,” I said, smoothing his hair where it lay on his back. “It’s only me.” He sighed, and I closed my eyes against him.
ALL IN ALL, it was two months before we could sail for Alexandria. Antonius’ troops needed time to rest and recover on our supplies, and he needed to set in motion the requirements of sending them into garrison in Antioch and Apamea. They were very much sweetened by the bonus of four hundred sesterces per man that Antonius gave them out of his own funds, especially the retirees who should have it in addition to lands in Macedon. It took Emrys all of a day to sell the deed to his future plot to some other man. It was with more than a thousand sesterces, all told, that he should come to Alexandria, more than enough to start some sort of business.
I was thankful daily that small Philadelphos was not delicate as Helios had been as a baby. Like his sister, he was strong and nursed readily, though at four months he had a bout of colic that kept everyone up at night, including Antonius, who insisted on getting up with him as though he were an ordinary man.
I came upon them at night, Antonius walking the deck of our warship as we sailed homeward, Philadelphos on his shoulder, while he talked in a low voice, pointing out the constellations we steered by. I stepped back into a shadow, not wanting to interrupt. I thought for a moment in the moonlight that Antonius was almost beautiful, now that his handsome features were worn to the bone, as though in extremity some spirit shone through that had never been apparent to me before.
I had not liked Antonius, but I could almost forgive him.
I heard a step along the deck and startled, but it was only Emrys. He had been allowed to travel with us on the flagship, because I had asked the Queen, and of course he was well known to Antonius.
Now he checked, but Antonius turned, tensing, his right hand going to where his sword should be.
“Peace,” Emrys said. “It’s only me, Aurelianus.”
“The boy won’t sleep,” Antonius said, Philadelphos still curled on his left shoulder, his head beneath his father’s chin. “I thought he could keep watch with me.”
Emrys came along the deck and leaned on the rail beside him, looking out over our wake. “He’s young to keep the watch, don’t you think?”
“Could be.” Antonius leaned beside him, carefully keeping Philadelphos inboard. “I remember when Antyllus was this small. It’s hard to believe now. I hear he beats Caesarion at horse racing.”
“And your daughters?” Emrys asked quietly.
Antonius took a deep breath. “I have to divorce Octavia, don’t I?”
Emrys spread his hands but said nothing.
“I’ve never even seen the younger daughter,” Antonius said. “Octavia writes and says I must come to Rome. I have to
decide now. Rome or the East. One family or another. I can’t delay anymore. I’m going to have to divorce Octavia.” He looked out over the sea. “I have to divorce her to marry Cleopatra.”
Emrys’ brows rose, but I doubt Antonius noticed. “That marriage won’t be valid under Roman law. I know surely enough that a Roman must marry a Roman citizen.”
“It will be valid under Egyptian law, which is where my children are.” Antonius half-turned toward the prow, the baby still beneath his chin. “Which family do I desert, which woman do I break? You sail for Alexandria yourself. Can we really leave Rome behind?”
“I was never Roman to start with,” Emrys said gently. “I do not have Roman bones, lares to follow me whispering. Out of all the world I’ve chosen my home, but I leave no one behind me. I can walk away and say that was my last battle.”
Antonius shook his head. “And I can never say that until I die. There will always be one more. I envy you, friend.”
I couldn’t see Emrys’ face, but I could hear the compassion in his voice. “I would not take all of the wealth in Egypt in exchange for being done with war.”
Antonius sighed, his arm still around Philadelphos. “And what would be the price of a normal life? Of watching my son grow into a man? I want to live, Aurelianus. I was in Parthia when I knew it, clearly as if the gods themselves had put the choice before me, to die a hero’s death and have unending fame, burning like a moth too close to a fire, Icarus too close to the sun. Or to just go home. I would trade all glory, all pride, all oaths, anything—simply to go home, to my children, to marry Cleopatra.”
I felt a frisson of cold run down my back, as though the bull had shied at the altar, and held my hands to avert the omen. But I knew, even then, that it was too late.
“Well,” Emrys said, ducking his head, “the women of the Ptolemies are extraordinary. How can any other in the world compete?”
Antonius laid his rough cheek against Philadelphos’ head, and I saw that the baby had fallen asleep. “Never, until the end of time, will there be a woman like Cleopatra.”
“Probably not,” Emrys agreed.