"Sad tidings, my friends," Gaius Julius proclaimed, letting Ermanerich stand him up. Gaius' guardsmen stared at him with interest. "Guard these doors and let no one enter! A bleak day for Rome, but not one without hope. The Emperor lies sadly dead, but before the sun rises, the Senate shall acclaim another."
—|—
As it happened, the sun was just climbing among the peaks of the Appenines when Gaius and Ermanerich and an ever-growing crowd of guardsmen and supporters reached the doors of the Curia. Down in the maze of buildings around the Forum, only the rooftops were glowing apricot with the first touch of dawn. Two ranks of Praetorians blocked the entrance to the Senate House and the Goth slowed, seeing the legionaries held bared swords and spears. Standing nearby, a brace of men in crimson cloaks and high, horsetail-plumed helmets surrounded a woman in regal garb.
Martina started with surprise when she saw Gaius Julius' troubled face in the torchlight.
"What happened?" she exclaimed, hurrying through the ranks of her own guardsmen. Gaius Julius managed a wan smile, but his weight was almost entirely supported by Ermanerich's powerful arm and shoulder.
"There was fighting in the palace," the old Roman said in a loud, carrying voice. The men on the steps of the Senate tensed and their officers moved forward, recognizing the Eastern Empress and the visage of one of the Imperial ministers. Gaius clutched Martina's proffered hand and bowed his gray head over her rings and bracelets. "Empress, I am surprised to find you here, and afraid I must give you poor news in public."
Everyone grew quiet; the tradesmen rising early to attend their shops and workshops passing through the Forum Romanum slowing their pace, eyes and ears drawn by the torches and grim-faced men arrayed on the steps of the Curia.
"Motrius, commander of the Imperial Guard, attempted to take the princeps Galen hostage tonight and claim the purple for himself." Gaius' voice grew stronger as he spoke and he winked at Martina. Relieved, she squeezed his hand in return. "By good luck, the guardsmen within the palace remained loyal and their valiant sacrifice bought time enough for news to reach me and allow some cohorts of the noble Eighth Augusta to run to the Emperor's succor."
A murmur ran through the crowd and behind the ranks of Praetorians on the steps, the great ivory doors opened a crack. Someone looked out, listening.
"The traitors have gone to a just reward," Gaius continued, his voice ringing from marble facings and pillars. "But we came moments too late. The Divine Emperor, our Lord and God, lay dying, though the dog Motrius had fallen as well, struck through by the Emperor's own sword, which has ever been ready in the defense of justice and freedom and against tyranny in all lands."
A stunned silence followed the words, and Gaius Julius bent his head, as if he hid tears with the folds of his bloody toga. For a moment, no one moved, and then one of the centurions among the Praetorians stepped forward.
"Who will lead us now?" the grizzled veteran asked of the crowd. "We are at war and the Emperor's son's too young to take up the laurel crown. Someone must lead Rome while we strive against Persia." The man turned to Gaius. "Did the Emperor say aught, when you found him?"
Gaius Julius shook his head, grief plain on his old face. "No, my lords. He breathed his last as we fought to his side. He said nothing."
"What of Aurelian?" Someone in the crowd called out. "He is Caesar, though absent. He will rule!"
Many of the tradesmen and passersby shouted in agreement, but the commander of the Praetorians—now joined by a clutch of senators newly dragged from their beds—shook his head. "A double tragedy," the centurion said, "for news has recently come from Egypt. Aurelian is dead, slain in defense of Alexandria itself."
"No!" A great moan rose and many of the senators on the steps cried out in fear and alarm. Men in the crowd gathered on the plaza ran away through the streets, shouting the news. Gaius Julius frowned after them, and motioned with his head to some of his guardsmen. The mercenaries loped off, hands on their knives.
"Do not despair!" Gaius Julius climbed the steps, one hand on the small of Martina's back, dragging her along. The Empress flushed, then hurried to catch up. Ermanerich was happy to remain in the crowd below, leaning on his spear. Exhaustion from the long, endless night was beginning to wear upon him. He'd ridden ten leagues, seen his men encamped, then plunged into this...
"Emperor Galen was a wise man and foresaw many paths fate might take. Beyond brave Aurelian, he also titled his younger brother Caesar. Now, with Theodosius an infant, the law says Prince Maxian should rule until his nephew is of proper age."
"But where is the prince?" the crowd murmured in response to the plaintive cry.
"Fear not, my friends," Gaius responded, pitching his voice so even the washerwomen at the back of the steadily-growing crowd could hear. "Prince Maxian has taken the field in Sicilia, where we have lately learned the Persians plan an attack. But the prince and his Legions wait in ambush, where the Persians do not expect them. He will seize victory from the jaws of the Cylcopes and bring home many captives, and much tribute, to honor great Rome!"
The frightened muttering died down a little. Gaius Julius turned to the senators clustered before the doors of the Curia. "Noble senators," he said, drawing their walleyed attention. "I abhor haste in all things, but this dawn we must move swiftly to assure and ease the troubled minds of the public. I call on you to open these doors and let the Senate enter, so Maxian—the young prince—may be proclaimed Augustus and God, Emperor of the Romans!"
—|—
Watching from below, Ermanerich pursed his lips in a slow, thoughtful whistle. At the old Roman's words, the Praetorians herded the senators back inside and Gaius and the Empress Martina entered, flanked by a hedge of men in armor, swords drawn. A great commotion rose inside the building, which was filled with the light of many lamps. It seems the headmen have already gathered, the Goth thought, allowing himself to be pulled along by the crowd surging up the steps. How did they know? Lest they were told aforetime...
Gaius' singular voice rose above the din, filling the hall with calm surety and determination. Senators milled around in a white cloud like so many sheep adrift on a hillside. Ermanerich forced his way out of the crowd, taking up a vantage just inside the doors. The Praetorians had recovered themselves and now began shouting and pressing back the common citizens who wished to look upon the deliberations of the mighty.
What geese these men are, the Goth thought sourly. This Gaius is a shrewd man—yet I would take care buying a horse from him! Aye, and count all four hooves and tail too, before silver left my hand...
The doors closed with a heavy thud and Ermanerich settled in to wait. These Romans had seemed prepared to deliberate and debate while the day came and went and the sun rose again. But he did not leave quite yet, though his men marched southward at a steady pace, for Ermanerich wished to be sure of events before he went once more to war.
—|—
"A thousand years is not too long to wait," Gaius Julius said sotto voce to Martina, who sat beside him on a marble bench, "for proper respect." The old Roman clasped the hands of one of the Senators, who emerged from the crowd in the Curia, muttered something about his "sympathies" and confided his support for the prince's imminent deification. Martina looked demure and grief-stricken for her brother-in-law's demise, answering the man's politeness with her own.
The crowd moved and the Empress stole a moment to glare at Gaius. "You didn't have to kill him," she whispered, rosebud lips twitching into a very pretty grimace. "I liked Galen! He was always polite to me and kind to my son."
"I did too," Gaius answered from the side of his mouth. "Necessity makes its own demands."
"Very well," she said, forcing a smile for the next of the magnates circulating in the crowded, hot room. Outside, the sun was well up, making the Forum shimmer, and even a system of constantly rotating fans suspended below the ceiling did little to alleviate the heat. "You can tell my husband what happened to his brother. A brother," she said, voice
cracking a little, "he loved very much."
Gaius started to say, it was him or me, then restrained himself. He had a very good idea where the Empress Martina's priorities lay and they did not necessarily include an old Roman dictator who happened to have escaped death by a very fine hair. Instead, he nodded somberly. "I will tell the prince. He will judge these events as he will."
One of Gaius' guardsmen approached, nervous without his weapons; the Praetorians had recovered something of their equilibrium and now surrounded the Senate House with a double ring of armed, angry men. The man bobbed his head, trying to draw attention without interrupting.
"Over here, Verus. Stop that, you look like a duck." Gaius Julius turned away from the Empress, leaning close. "What news?"
"Not good, sir." Verus screwed his face up. The old Roman gave him a withering stare. "We've searched the Palatine from top to bottom—" The man's voice dropped like a stone into a well. "—there's no sign of her or the boy. None. Like she just... vanished."
Gaius Julius grunted, his face sliding into careful immobility. He pinned the man with a furious glance. "How long," he said softly, "have Empress Helena and her son been missing?"
"Since..." The man gulped. "Last night. One of her maids says she went to bed at the usual hour!"
One eyelid flickering, Gaius Julius turned away, waving his hand in dismissal. Martina was watching him, her perfect face tinged with feigned concern. Her limpid brown eyes seemed very cold. "Well? What did he say?"
"Nothing we can do anything about now." Gaius Julius felt his stomach slowly unclench. This is what haste gains you, my lad, he chided himself. But our nets will scoop her up. "Your good friend Helena, in her grief, has disappeared."
"Has she?" The Empress of the East's lips curled back from white, white teeth. One smooth hand drifted across her breast, coming to rest with long fingertips on her clavicle. "She'll hide with friends, won't she? Where else would she go?"
Gaius nodded, spying a storm cloud of perspiring senators bearing down on him. He stepped away from the Empress, smiling genially, yet with the trace of profound regret appropriate for such a terrible day.
"Good," Martina said to herself, wondering how much longer she would be forced to endure this heat. She began to smile, spirits lifting. "Their names will be on one of dear Gaius' lists and when the arrests and executions begin, they will beg for their lives and she will be yielded up, trussed like a... a summer sausage!" Then her face fell again and she had to fight against gnawing on a nail. I never meant Galen ill! Stupid, reckless Gaius Julius! She sighed, feeling very lonely. I miss my husband, she thought morosely, but the image in her mind was neither Maxian nor Heraclius, exactly.
CHAPTER FIFTY
The Wasteland
"You are Mohammed," the wounded man said in a weak voice, forcing his eyelids open. They were caked with grime, dried blood and crusty yellow crystals. The rest of his face—once darkly handsome—was no better, his eye sockets surrounded by glassy scars, his scalp lacerated by jagged cuts. "You were selling cups and plates; a whole caravan of beautiful red pottery..."
"Yes," Mohammed answered, lifting the Egyptian from the black sand. The body was very light, but still had some weight. Ahmet had been a strong man with a powerful build in life. "Is my caravan the last thing you remember?"
"I..." Ahmet turned his head weakly, an expression of bewilderment working its way across his wounded face. He did not seem to recognize the wasteland of broken, black stone and weathered spires. "I remember roses climbing a plastered wall and... and a woman." He stopped speaking, his body clenching convulsively into a tight ball. Mohammed let him shudder, holding Ahmet close while he climbed carefully out of the pit. There did not seem to be any weather in this place—the flat, black sky remained still and unblemished by clouds or wind or even a celestial body—but instinct bade him find shelter.
One of the jagged boulders harbored an egg-shaped opening in one side, the largest among hundreds of cavities and pits eroded from the glassy stone. Mohammed ducked inside, finding the floor covered with the same obsidian-colored sand as the plain. He noticed, but was no longer surprised by, the directionless, ambient light picking out every detail. There was no sun—the air itself seemed to be the source of this queer, febrile radiance.
He laid Ahmet down, letting the Egyptian's body uncurl at its own pace.
"Do you remember her name?" Mohammed sat on the sandy floor beside his friend, the staff of fig wood leaning against his shoulder. "Do you remember the golden city?" Do you remember the siege?
Ahmet managed to nod, though he seemed very weak. "I remember the last day. A dreadful shape rising above the towers..."
"You fell," Mohammed said softly, "and your body was stolen by the enemy. I searched among the ruins, but you had been taken away. Do you remember what happened after that?"
Convulsive shuddering wracked the emaciated body again and the Quraysh waited patiently until the spasms passed. This seemed to take a long time, though Mohammed noticed he did not tire, or grow hungry or thirsty. He began to wonder if time had any meaning in this place, wherever it was. It may not, he considered, if this plain is beyond life and death alike.
The Egyptian lay still again. Mohammed waited until the man's eyes opened. "Do you remember now?"
"Yes." The word was flat, and dead, and laden with enormous, inexpressible weight. "I do."
"How did you come to be here?" The Quraysh tried to restrain his curiosity—there is time enough to be patient, or is there?—Mōha had claimed time did not pass in this place, but what if he had lied? What if the perception of timelessness were part of the trap, the prison?
A dry, rasping sound shook Ahmet's body and the Quraysh was heartened to recognize a feeble attempt at laughter. "I do not know what this place is. I became aware of this desert when you touched my shoulder. Before that... I was... I was in Egypt."
Mohammed frowned. "Egypt? What do you mean?"
Now the withered, scarred lips twisted, trying to smile. "I sat in a great temple—not the Serapeum, but one looking out upon the sea and the harbor—and the multitudes came before me, bowing, offering tribute and sacrifice." Ahmet's hands moved, groping around his head. "Hard to see what they dragged before my altar through the mask, but there were screams..." His lips fluttered, broken teeth making a click-click-click sound.
"What kind of mask?" Mohammed squatted, trying to make out the croaking words.
"...there were many priests and they wore the casque of Set and the lords of shadow... There were statues—new statues—of me... She was seated at my side, I could smell her hair!" Ahmet's eyes flickered open, filled with shock and surprise. "I can still smell her, hear them, hear the screams of men on the breaking block!"
Mohammed shook his head in confusion, then remembered something Zoë had once done. "Ahmet," he said, grasping the man's shoulder and feeling a chill shock as his hand started to pass through the wiry muscle and bone. "Ahmet, you are here with me, with your old friend Mohammed, the caraveneer. You are here, not there, not in Alexandria in a temple." Flesh stiffened and the Quraysh sighed in relief, seeing his friend become solid once more. Time is short, he felt. This interlude cannot last.
"Open your eyes," Mohammed commanded, putting steel in his voice. "Tell me what is happening in the world you saw."
The Egyptian focused again and the Quraysh thought he saw awareness flare in the dead eyes before hopelessness dulled them again. Ahmet lifted a hand, his dusty fingertips brushing Mohammed's face. "Hah. Are you real? I can touch you—but any sensation may be deceived. How did you find your way into my prison?"
"I am a prisoner too," Mohammed answered, now sure time was pressing. "But I cannot see out into the living world. You can—is your body, your true body, in Alexandria?"
"My corpse, you mean," Ahmet said, voice strengthening a little. "Yes. A puppet, moved by a dark, implacable will."
Revulsion and disgust twisted his expression. "The Serpent's army has taken the city and my...
my shape, for there is no better word, sits on a throne like Pharaoh and dispenses fear and terror in place of wisdom and judgment."
"Who else is there?" Mohammed felt oddly adrift. The Persians in Alexandria? What happened to the campaign in Thrace? Did Constantinople fall? Did Shadin and his little army overcome the Roman garrison?
"She is," Ahmet groaned, starting to curl up again. Mohammed pressed his shoulders down with both hands. A cold suspicion was growing, just under his breastbone. Bits and pieces of... of everything were beginning to come together in his mind.
"Who is she?"
"The Queen, my queen, my beloved," Ahmet whispered. "She sits by my side and her voice is gracious and sweet as she pleads for mercy. We make a fine pair—one to distill fear, the other to offer hope—each on a golden throne."
"Zenobia?" Mohammed felt the chill blossom into a deadly, breath-crushing flower. "Or Zoë?"
"They are one," Ahmet gasped, hands clutching on something only he could see. "One more horror laid at horror's feet..."
Mohammed sat back, mind roiling with fury, despair, realization; a whirlwind of emotion. He grasped the staff for support, pressing his forehead against cool wood. A regal voice echoed in his memory: You are being deceived. He'd recognized the clear soprano then and ignored her warning. I was a fool, the Quraysh thought. I am not the voice, I am not infallible.
"How... how did Zenobia—" Mohammed stopped, realizing what had happened. "No, I understand. The Queen's mutilated body was a trap. Zoë took her corpse from the mountain tomb, and her mind become ensnared..."
Ahmet nodded, knocking his bare skull against the sand. "He is fond of innocent-seeming lures. By our heart's desire we are captured and bound." The Egyptian managed another hoarse, rattling laugh. "He is strong, but made stronger still by the desires of others bent to his will."
Mohammed grasped Ahmet's hand. "This 'he'—the same wizard you fought on the plain of towers?" The Egyptian nodded. "Is he a spirit, a god, or just a man?"
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