The king barked out a command, and two of his men came forward with a bundle of cloth. They bowed as they held it out before the little slave girl, who pulled the wrappings away and then handed off her walking stick before she lifted up the Trident of Poseidon and set it before her. The wooden staff had been sawn down, Juba could see, so that the head of the Trident, and the black stone of the Shard that gave it power, was no longer at his eye level but hers. She leaned on it, her hands gripping the wood and not the winding metal snakes around the Shard. Juba could not see her face, but her shoulders were sunken in a look of pure exhaustion and despair, and they trembled as if she wept.
“I am fascinated by this,” Corocotta said. “It is like the Lance, yet it is very different. Though we have not yet managed what you did, we have been learning how it works.”
“You are killing these men in cold blood,” Octavian said.
“You are invaders here. I do not think you have the right to object. And we need to learn how it works.” He gestured back toward Juba. “Did you not make your slave do the same?”
“He’s not my slave.”
The king scoffed, “He looks like one.”
Octavian faltered—the first time that any emotion had troubled his demeanor since they’d heard the footsteps approaching the cell. “He is my brother.”
Corocotta laughed, a long and mocking sound that rumbled over the battlements and into the darkness. “And you think me cruel,” he finally said.
Juba’s body felt shattered, but as much as he’d gone through he felt like he would recover. But this girl—this crippled slave girl—was she a sign that there was a point where he wouldn’t be able to do so? Was that what had happened to her? “It’s killing her,” he said.
Corocotta turned. “It is killing you, is it not? Little by little, it takes what you are. Some comes back, Caesar’s brother. But not all.” His voice was like a sneer for a moment, but then he returned to his casual tone and went back to addressing Octavian. “Many cannot use the Lance at all. It is hard to find someone who can survive the powers, and I think the same must be true of this object, too. That is the reason you will not use it yourself, Caesar. You are no fool. This one of mine does not have long before she is used up, I think. And then I will find another. They say that Olyndicus used it himself, but he would have been a fool to do so. Like us, he surely used a slave.”
A slave. Juba stared at the back of the little girl, at her trembling shoulders. For all that she had tried to harm him, he wanted to take her in his arms and hold her while they wept.
Octavian had not replied, and the king of the Cantabrians turned back to the whimpering legionnaire below. “And that brings us to your choice, my friend,” he bellowed. “Give your allegiance to me, as two of your brothers have, or we see if she is more efficient at killing a man this time around. That last one did not suffer long.”
Juba felt Octavian’s body tense up beside him, and then his stepbrother sprang forward, leaping into the side of the little girl and sending her sprawling as he wrested the Trident from her hands, spun it around to Corocotta, and placed his hands upon the twin snakes that coiled around the head of the weapon and the blacker-than-black stone at its center.
He shouted at Juba to run, and then his voice choked off as his eyes rolled back into his head and his body began to shake as if an unseen giant had gripped him in an angry fist.
“Octavian!” Juba shouted. He tried to lunge forward, but the guards easily caught him and held him. He watched, powerless, as Augustus Caesar fell to the ground, spasming, his knuckles turning white as they gripped the Trident harder and harder.
Corocotta laughed again, and after a few seconds he loomed up over the fallen man and harmlessly kicked the Trident out of his grip with his boot. Octavian’s body jerked once, twice, and then was still but for its ragged, gasping breaths as his lungs fought to keep him alive.
“Take them back,” he said to the guards. “See that Caesar lives.” Then he motioned to the little slave girl to retrieve the fallen Shard before turning back to the legionnaire in the darkness below. “As for you,” he boomed. “It seems Caesar has spoken.”
15
THE PEACE OF ROME
CANTABRIA, 26 BCE
Standing at the main gate of the Roman encampment, staring out over the night-shadowed valley to the distant glimmer of torchlights that marked the battlements of Vellica, Selene thought of many things. There was the hopelessness of knowing that Juba had been taken behind those distant walls and there was nothing she could do for him. There was the despair of knowing that although she had managed to protect the Palladium when her body had fallen upon it, it was useless in the face of what she had seen of the powers of the Lance and the Trident. There was the horrible awareness of the unburied dead that littered the darkness below.
But above all in this moment, she thought of a growing discomfort in her mind, the possibility that Octavian was right: that he and Cleopatra had wanted the same thing.
Just the thought of it made Selene feel ill.
But was it true?
And if it was true, what did it mean?
She had been ten years old when Octavian had taken Alexandria. Ten years old when she had seen her father’s bloody body cradled in her mother’s arms. Ten years old when she’d run from that horror, intending to somehow find Octavian and kill him. Ten years old when she’d sworn to him that she would marry Juba the Numidian to preserve the life of Lucius Vorenus. Ten years old when she’d smuggled the asp to her imprisoned mother, pushing the basket forward with its offering of death.
She had sworn to her mother that she would avenge her. It was the last time she’d seen her alive. They were her final words to her. And not a day had gone by in the years since that she hadn’t dreamed of that vengeance, plotted it. She’d fallen in love with Juba, and that, too, had become part of the plan.
All to destroy Octavian. All to destroy Rome.
And yet … was Octavian right?
The Peace of Rome. That’s what he’d called it. And Rome was safe, after all. No bandits in the woods. No fighting upon the streets. She’d enjoyed that security every time she’d snuck out with Tiberius to wander the streets at night. She’d known it even on the night she’d used him to steal the Palladium.
What was it that Tiberius had said on the morning of the battle? Make the world Rome, and there’d be no one left to fight.
Impossible, of course. No one could conquer the world. Even Alexander had failed.
But it was true that within Rome’s borders there could be peace. Had that been what her mother had sought from first Caesar and then Mark Antony? Forge an alliance with Rome, become one with that eternal city, and there could be peace from one side of the sea to the other. Security and prosperity.
The Peace of Rome.
Selene shook her head. Even beyond her love for him, she felt she needed Juba at times like this. A few years older, a few years more experienced in knowing the ways of the world, he often saw to the heart of a problem. It had been Juba who had persuaded her that killing Octavian alone would solve nothing. It was what Octavian stood for that needed to be destroyed. It was Rome itself.
But at what price? Was the Peace of Rome a truly horrible dream? Or was it perhaps something real, something tangible that was worth setting aside their need to avenge the fallen members of their families?
Selene stared out into the darkness, out at the hillfort that was so close and yet a world away.
Carisius and the other members of the general staff had been locked away with Tiberius in the days since Octavian and Juba had been taken. They were working hard to keep up the facade that Caesar was with them, too; from the moment Selene awoke after the attack, she had been aware of the Roman leaders’ efforts to hide what had happened that morning.
Part of this secrecy, she knew, was a matter of simple political expedience. The generals understood that it was best for morale—especially in the face of the army’s defeat in th
e battle, after the attack on the general staff resulted in a loss of strategic control upon the field—if the men thought Caesar remained in authority within the camp. The other reason for the secrecy, however, was that the leaders simply didn’t understand what had happened. She had heard as much as she lay still upon the field, for the leaders had huddled there, arguing about what had been done and what needed now to be done. There had been a storm, they agreed. There had been fire and lightning. But nothing of it made sense. She’d heard them whispering what they had seen to one another, each man disbelieving the other’s account, each man unwilling to believe even his own eyes. Tricks of nature, some said. Cantabrian magic, others argued. And still others thought it was the vengeance of the gods for some Roman offense. Whatever the reason chosen, though, all were agreed that the fewer who knew what was happening, the better.
None of them had asked Selene what she thought of it all. And none had seemed to give the slightest heed to her as she tucked away the little statue upon which she had fallen and hurried back to her tent to hide it once more.
Selene had later tried to meet with them, to learn what she could of what was happening, but the praetorian guards had turned her away from the tent. Whatever plans they had for getting back Caesar and her husband, they clearly did not require the presence of a fifteen-year-old girl, no matter how much she had experienced and how mature she was.
Selene sighed into the night, and she tightened the shawl that she had pulled around her neck. She didn’t want to return to her tent, didn’t want to face the emptiness there, but Juba was beyond her reach now.
Perhaps, Selene thought to herself as she turned and began the walk back toward her tent, the morning might bring news. For all she knew, the morning might even bring Juba back into her arms. She could kiss and hold him, and she could tell him how maybe, just maybe, they could learn to live in the Peace of Rome, the peace of Augustus Caesar. She didn’t know what it would be to live in a world without vengeance, and she didn’t know whether her mother would be disappointed or proud that she would even think of it.
She had just decided that the answer was a little of both, when she came around a corner, saw her tent, and then froze.
Someone was inside it. Pale light spilled from the thin crack of the flap, flashing to the shadow of movement within.
For a second, her heart leapt in her chest, but then she noticed how quiet the camp had grown around this place, how no one walked the paths nearby. And she saw the shapes of the praetorians in the darkness to either side of the tent. She did not need to turn in order to know that Caesar’s guards had melted out of the gloom behind her, too.
Not that she intended to run. There was no sense in doing so, for she had nowhere to go.
Instead, Cleopatra Selene once more pulled tight the shawl about her neck, letting its closeness be a comfort. And then, holding her head high as a queen of Egypt should, she walked to the tent and Tiberius.
* * *
Augustus Caesar’s adopted son was alone in the lamp-lit tent, sitting at the small table that had been set at the foot of the bed Selene shared with her husband. That bed was exactly as she had left it: the feather-stuffed mattress atop its raised metal frame covered over with a fine white linen sheet, crowned with pillows set against the iron lattice of the headboard.
Little else about the space was so pristine. The wooden drawers of her traveling dresser had been pulled and overturned, scattering clothing upon the slatted floor. The desk had been torn through. And in the corner, someone had opened Juba’s locked chest by taking an ax to the wood. It was splintered like an open wound, broken nearly in half in the intensity of the search. Whether or not the lower compartment had been breached—where the Aegis and the Palladium were hidden—Selene could not tell.
Tiberius did not look up when she entered. Before him on the small table were a clay pitcher of wine and two gilded cups—hers and Juba’s—a strangely peaceful scene amid the chaos surrounding him. The cup facing him was empty, but his hand was wrapped around the other, and he stared into the thick red of the wine within.
“How dare you enter this space,” Selene said. “My husband—”
“Is not here,” Tiberius interrupted. His eyes were dark and unreadable when they slowly rose to meet hers. “And we don’t know if he ever will be again.”
Selene swallowed. Was that a threat? A portent of some news that they had received? “Until we know one way or another, I—”
“Knowing,” he said, looking back into his drink as he interrupted her once more. “That’s so much of it, isn’t it? What we know and what we don’t know.” His fingers turned the cup before him.
Selene instinctively wanted to run for the chest, to see what he knew, but of course that was foolish. The worst thing she could do would be to draw attention to it. So what would her mother do?
She was just starting to open her mouth when Tiberius abruptly looked up. He had an apologetic smile on his face. “But where are my manners? Please, Lady Selene, sit down. Let me pour you a drink.”
Selene didn’t move. “I’m not thirsty, Tiberius.”
“Oh, I insist.” Tiberius stood, and in a step he was beside her, his arm clamped to her shoulder, steering and settling her into the opposite chair. Still staring at her, he picked up the pitcher and poured a stream into her cup before refilling his own and sitting down.
Selene lifted the cup with two hands to ensure that it would not shake. While he took a long draft, she took only the smallest of sips before she closed her mouth and let the wine simply wet her lips. When he started to lift his own drink away from his mouth, she did the same, setting the cup down and smiling across the table at him, trying to project the air of serenity that her mother had always possessed. “It’s good wine,” she said.
Tiberius nodded as he held his cup—Juba’s cup—in the air and examined it. “The vineyard is not far from here. They tell me it is one of the best in this region. Not a wine of Rome, but a wine of Romans.”
“The vintner should be commended.”
Tiberius half-frowned. “Difficult,” he said, sloshing the thick red liquid in the cup into circles. “When these Cantabrians rebelled, the vineyards and villas were targets in the first strike. From what I heard, the winemaker and his family were hung from the rafters of their villa. They were still alive when it burned.”
“Oh.” Selene blinked down at the wine, then removed her hands from her cup and folded them in her lap where their shaking could not be seen.
Tiberius took another long drink before setting down his cup. “They are not civilized, Selene. You have to understand that. They are barbarians. Heathens. They know nothing of law and of order.”
“Whose law?”
Tiberius stared at her. “Caesar’s.”
“And what if he doesn’t come back?”
“Some say the next Caesar would be Agrippa or Marcellus. But we both know it will be me. I am the adopted son of Augustus, just as he was the adopted son of Julius. I will be Caesar after our father’s death. I may be Caesar now.”
“You don’t know if he’s alive?”
“If I were Corocotta I would have killed him already. I would have killed them both.”
Selene opened her mouth to say something more, but the words choked off in her throat. She had to swallow hard to keep her fear in check. Juba is alive, she told herself. Juba has to be alive. She would see him again. She just had to survive.
Survive. How many times had her mother thought the same? Had she thought it before she’d taken Julius Caesar into her bed?
“They’ve made no contact,” Tiberius continued. One of his fingers idly traced the rim of his cup. “And they took the wagon of gold with them. I’m not sure what more they could expect to get out of Father, and of course Juba is worth nothing on his own.”
Selene’s arm twitched, and her hand curled up in a fist, but she pushed her anger back down. “But he’s your father,” she managed to say.
“Yours,
too,” Tiberius corrected, and his lip ticked upward in the faintest of smiles, laced with cruelty. “And he said it himself yesterday morning, didn’t he? By adoption. For us both, my sister.”
Something about the way he said that last word, like the sound of a slithering snake, sent a tremor up her spine. Like the asp that she’d brought for her mother, hissing in the corner before Octavian ran it through with a spear.
“But the difference between us, Selene, is that even before I was his son, I was a Roman.” One of his fingers continued to trace the rim of his cup. “You were an Egyptian. Without him, you’re not even a citizen. Not even by that beast you call a husband, who is no better than a Numidian.”
Selene tightened up, and his eyes narrowed even as his smile grew.
“Ah, yes. The last time I was here you slapped me for speaking ill of him. But now you begin to see the place you’re in. Until Augustus returns—if he returns—I am Caesar now. It’s my law, Selene. My Rome. And you’re the daughter of the woman who brought war upon it. You’re the daughter who still dreams of continuing that war.”
“Tiberius, I don’t—”
His hand balled into a fist and slammed down upon the table, cutting her off. “Enough!”
Selene gasped, but said nothing.
“Enough of your lies. Your games. The last time I was here, girl, I told you that I’d find out what you took from the Temple of the Vestals that night. I promised you. It’s time.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
“You do understand,” he said. He stood abruptly, staggering for a moment before making three heavy-footed steps toward the corner of the tent. For the moment his back was turned, and the thought of running once more flashed through her mind, but she knew the guards would catch her. And his anger would not be lessened for it.
Then she saw that he had stopped in front of Juba’s chest, that he was leaning down to reach through its broken lid.
The Gates of Hell Page 17