Keeper of the Flame

by Tracy L. Higley

  He shrugged. “I have lived here all my life. It seemed only natural to pursue learning.”

  How could I have allowed harm to come to him? And to Sosigenes?

  She dropped to the chair beside her desk and rested her forehead in her hands.

  “You could ask the Roman for help,” Ares said, his voice tentative and soft.

  “They are gone. All but a few left to keep us in line.”

  “Perhaps you could find him—”

  “He is gone!”

  “The queen, then. Perhaps she knows where Pothinus is keeping himself.”

  Sophia lifted her head and nodded, and a timid knock sounded at the door. “You see,” she said, unable to resist, “that is how it should sound.” She opened the door to the servant she had engaged downstairs, who gave her a stack of flattened papyrus sheets.

  “Stay. I will have a message for the palace. You can deliver it to the queen.”

  The servant cleared his throat and seemed to have something to say.

  “Yes? What is it? Speak up!”

  “It is the queen, mistress.”

  Sophia’s heart lurched into her throat. “What has happened?”

  He rocked from one foot to the other. “She is not in the city.”

  “Where, then?”

  “She sailed out under Roman colors this morning with the legion’s general. They are saying that they went to meet another of Rome’s legions, caught by the winds off the coast.”

  Sophia exhaled heavily. She tossed the papyrus on her desk. “You have taken care of the other tasks I gave you?”

  “Yes, mistress. The physician has been sent for, and word from the city will be brought as well.”

  “Good.” She waved him away, but he did not move.

  “Yes?”

  He held out another papyrus. “A message.”

  She sighed and took it from him. “You are as forthcoming as a river stone!” The message was brief but deadly. Somehow Caesar had learned that she likely held the Proginosko. And he wanted it immediately, or he would have his soldiers remove her from the lighthouse.

  “Get out,” she said to the servant. “Get out!”

  He bowed from the room, no doubt grateful to get back to hauling dung.

  “You sent for the physician?” Ares said, recalling her thoughts.

  She shrugged and pointed to the door, where the servant had disappeared. “You see what I would have to make use of, should an infection steal you from me. I am only protecting myself.” But her voice faltered, and the casual words fell flat. She dared not look at the boy, lest he see the tears that pooled in spite of her best effort.

  She fell to her chair again, into a brooding silence. Ares returned to the couches, and she regretted not telling the servant, whose name she could not remember, to bring food. Ordinarily, she would simply yell down the ramp and somehow, always, Ares would appear.

  She should send him away, back to the Base where he belonged.

  But she did not.

  The sun began its slant through her western windows, and still she stared, blank-eyed, at nothing.

  What was happening to her? She had worked hard to keep to herself here in the lighthouse. Over the years her fearsome reputation had spread, and those who had a choice avoided her. Those who did not have a choice bowed and scraped to please her.

  Yes, she had been successful in building walls around herself. And now, when she needed help, she had no one.

  And yet . . . in spite of the walls she had built, in spite of the tower she kept, some had broken through.

  Ares. Sosigenes.

  Bellus.

  She swallowed the hot regret at the thought of him, and the memory of his touch, his kiss. It had been the first time she had felt like a woman in many years.

  She wanted to sink into the memory, to let it wash over her with softness and warmth. Instead, something within rose up to fight it, to raise an angry sword and slash away.

  This is what comes of getting attached. They cannot love you. You do not deserve their love.

  The physician came and with him, a servant. Ares called him by name, sparing her from having to ask.

  “News?” she said to Talal, directing the physician to Ares.

  “The city is readying for battle,” Talal said. “Pothinus directs them.”

  “Pothinus! Where?”

  “He has set up headquarters in the Library, it would seem.”

  Sophia put her hands to her hips, anger at the man’s audacity roiling in her stomach.

  “And ships,” Talal continued, “are sailing into the harbor.”

  Sophia hurried to the window, and indeed, the horizon was littered with the masts and hulls of a fleet of ships.

  “They cannot be Egyptian. Not that many.”

  “Roman,” Talal said behind her. “Cleopatra and Caesar return, with the strength of a second legion behind them.”

  So it begins.

  Talal disappeared, the physician tended to Ares, mumbling that he had never seen accidental cuts so parallel, and Sophia watched the ships outlined against the setting sun.

  They trembled on the brink of war, all of them. But for Sophia, only one truth held sway. Pothinus had Sosigenes and would surely kill him. And Pothinus was in the Library.

  “I am going,” she said, when the physician had left.

  “You cannot go alone, Sophia.”

  She could hear Ares cross the room behind her. “I have no choice. There is no one else.”

  “Even with one arm, I am better than nothing.”

  “No. I will not endanger you further.”

  “Find the Roman, Sophia. He—he cares for you. He will help—”

  She spun on him. “You forget yourself, Ares. Do not take advantage of my kindness. You are my servant, and I do not require or desire advice from a servant!”

  Ares tilted his head, looked at her with pitying eyes, then dropped his gaze. His pity only angered her further.

  “See about your duties, Ares. I expect you to do all you can, even with your injury, and to find others to finish what work you cannot. You have wasted an entire day here. Do not give me reason to regret it.”

  With that, she pushed past him, past the hurt in his eyes, out of the chamber.

  The ramp blurred before her as she stomped down it, uncertain of where her feet took her, but with one thought uppermost in her mind: It is time to come out of the tower and take to the streets.

  Pothinus would soon feel what a tyrant like Sophia could do.

  Thirty-Eight

  Bellus waited on the docks along the waterfront that housed the dozens of warehouses, loaded with goods both coming and going from Alexandria, center of the trading world. One of them, Sophia had told him, housed perhaps thousands of scrolls being copied for the Library. But he would not think of Sophia or of books today.

  In the harbor ahead, framed against the glorious sunset that splashed the sky with billows of smoky orange and royal purple, Caesar’s ship navigated the reefs and sailed toward the dock, with a legion of reinforcements behind him.

  Bellus did not stand alone. Hundreds of soldiers stood with him, lining the dock like a passel of fidgety children, waiting for the father’s return.

  Along the dock, he knew, stood at least twenty other centurions of his rank, also anxious for Caesar to hear their reports, to nod his approval, to pat their heads.

  Though it had been the way of his life for many years, tonight something inside him rebelled at the familiar scene.

  Caesar’s ship bore down upon them all until Bellus could see the great general at its stern, his lean form, his patrician nose, his hair combed forward to cover his balding pate. He wore the glow of battle on his face. At his side stood the queen of Egypt, her chin lifted to the air, one arm entwined around Caesar’s.

  Bellus stood straighter, as though the general would be watching him alone. As though they all did not jostle and maneuver to catch his eye. Bellus kept his gaze fixed on Caesar, despite t
he push of soldiers from behind and the press from either side.

  But Caesar’s attention had shifted to Cleopatra, who leaned over to speak into his ear. He covered her hand on his arm with his own and smiled.

  A stab of unreasonable jealousy caused Bellus to blink rapidly, though he could not name its origin, whether from a desire for Caesar’s attention, or a desire for the attention of a woman who loved him.

  He kept his eyes from the lighthouse.

  The boat bumped against the dock, and the soldiers gave a shout of victory. Through the day word had spread of Caesar’s victory at sea. The single quinquereme taken from the Egyptians sailed amidst the Thirty-Seventh, a beleaguered testimony to the military prowess of the Romans. Every soldier along the dock pounded his pilum onto the stone quay.

  The ship was tied, a plank lowered, and Caesar and Cleopatra hurried from the deck, as though anxious for the sanctuary of the palace.

  Bellus elbowed his way through the rank and file milites soldiers to reach the path cleared for the general, but Caesar ignored the well-wishers along the quay, his long-legged pace leaving Cleopatra to hurry behind.

  As he passed Bellus, Caesar slowed and nodded. “I hear you saved us all from a thirsty death.”

  Bellus saluted.

  “Come to me at the palace. I will have new orders for you. Something better fitted to an officer of your standing.”

  Bellus gave a quick nod. “Yes, General.”

  The mob swelled behind Caesar as he moved on, filling in the gap.

  Bellus let the air escape from his chest and relaxed his fisted hands.

  At last.

  It had been two long months, since they had first arrived and found the Alexandrian mob to be more quarrelsome—and the machinations of the Ptolemies more brutal—than they imagined. He had been exiled to that lonesome lighthouse, to wait out his general’s displeasure, to be given another chance to prove himself.

  And now, at last, his punishment had ended, and he had gained what he most wanted. The approval of the Master of the Mediterranean.

  Behind him, the sun faded away into the sea. He glanced back, still guided by his usual habit of checking the lighthouse flame.

  Yes, there it was, as always. He slowed to watch the flame brighten and swell. No doubt servants worked to angle the mirror to send its messages over the sea.

  His gaze slid down the darkened tower, past the circular top section, the octagonal middle, halfway down the tallest, bottom tier. Sophia’s private chamber did not have windows on this side of the building.

  She faced away from him even now.

  The palace called to him, but he let the crowd flow around him, past the warehouses and into the royal quarter. He sat on a wall along the harbor until he was alone, and studied the lighthouse.

  It seemed so remote, as though he had lived a different part of his life there.

  And in a sense, he had. It was a different Bellus who had lived there. Bellus the centurion had been shed like an outworn skin. Something new and alive had been called forth, there in Sophia’s chamber, with her books and her keen mind and her shy smile.

  Which is the true Bellus?

  She had uncovered the part of him he had endeavored to keep hidden. But instead of scoffing and derision, she had given him encouragement. Friendship.

  He had wanted so much more for her. Freedom.

  Why had she pushed him away?

  The solitude of the harbor pressed upon him. Caesar would be waiting. He shook off the reverie and turned his steps to the palace.

  Inside the palace hall, he heard voices ahead and turned to the main audience hall.

  “Ah, Pilus Prior Bellus,” Caesar held out a hand from the front of the columned room, and the eyes of a handful of senior officers turned toward him. “Restorer of the water.”

  Bellus crossed the hall to the back-slaps of several of his fellow centurions.

  Restorer.

  The name struck him, for it spoke of his hopes for Sophia, of what he might offer. But it was not simply what he could do for her that drew him, that pulled him back to the lighthouse as though a cord stretched between them.

  “ . . . with the water,” Caesar was saying, and Bellus tried to focus on him. “We must be ready to face the next threat, coming from all directions.”

  Would Sophia be in danger? A mighty battle was coming, that was certain. What would that mean for the lighthouse?

  “Eh, Bellus?” Caesar said. “You understand?”

  “I—I am sorry, General—”

  Caesar laughed. “I think my centurion needs more sleep. Portius, explain Bellus’s next assignment to him.” The general waved them out, but then called to Bellus before they left the hall.

  “You have proven yourself with the water, Bellus, so I have trusted you with much more. Do not disappoint me.”

  But Bellus was already planning what he would say to Sophia when he reached the lighthouse, and he barely heard his general’s final words.

  Thirty-Nine

  Sophia paced through the North Wing, counting her steps, counting the hours, counting everything that had gone wrong in her life of late. Sosigenes and the Proginosko were in the grasp of Pothinus, and after the full moon of this evening, Pothinus would have no more use for her friend. She could not leave Sosigenes or the Proginosko with Pothinus. But if she recovered them, would it only be to hand them over to Caesar? She fumed at the impossible situation. She could not protect the scholars, and she could not send them away.

  The day had not been completely wasted, but it was much later than she had hoped, and still she was not ready to set out.

  The corridor of the North Wing was strangely dark, due to the addition of a mighty hinged wooden door in the entrance of the lighthouse. She had never before felt the need for such a thing.

  Outside, the city held its breath, ready for the storm that rumbled on the horizon.

  Finally, finally, there came a pounding on the door and a shout she recognized. She lifted the iron latch and swung it open.

  They seemed to swarm into the Base, these men she had hired. Down to the last of them, they were dirty, poor, and frightening.

  They spent their days on the rocks of the Eunostos Harbor, waiting, hoping for ships to founder on the rocks and spill their luxuries into the sea. They were ever vigilant for such spoils, but also willing to be drawn away from their watch for the promise of easy and sure money. Sophia had sent word through a servant from the village that she had a task requiring a dozen men not afraid of a fight. She would pay well.

  And here they were.

  One of the pirates sallied alongside her and leaned close. “So this is the lady of the lighthouse.” Some of his letters hissed curiously through a gap left by a missing tooth. “The fearsome Sophia who rules Pharos Island from up there.” He jabbed a finger skyward and circled her, his face still close. “In need of a few good men, we hear.”

  Sophia addressed herself to this obvious leader, though she backed away a few steps. She resisted holding her hands as a barrier. “I need you to go to the Library.”

  Laughter erupted all around, loud cackles that reminded her of the seals that often barked off the western coast. “We don’t get much call to visit the Library, mistress.”

  She shrugged. “You do not go to read books.”

  “Ah, good thing, then.”

  “You go to rescue someone in danger.”

  The laughter settled, though amusement still played about their faces.

  “We see plenty of folks in danger, mistress. But rescue’s not our usual way.”

  “Then today you will redeem yourself for many ills.” She pushed through the lot of them toward the new door. “You will be well paid when we return.”

  “We?” More laughter.

  She turned on them. “The city is readying for war. It is not safe to travel alone. I expect your protection. And when we reach the Library, there is someone we must extract. There may be violence. Any questions?”

>   The group stared blankly, and she wondered if she had made the right decision. After weeks of watching the well-trained Roman army live and drill beneath her, she knew not whether this rag-tag group could remove a bird from its nest.

  Sophia lifted the iron latch once more, pushed the door open, and nodded to the men. They filled in around her, and then they were off.

  She left it to Ares to close the door. He no doubt hovered somewhere, though she had not seen him since she had scolded his familiarity last night.

  They crossed the causeway to the main part of the island, then walked en masse through the village, drawing the stares of townspeople and the frightened yelps of children. Even here on her island she could feel the people’s fear.

  Across the heptastadion, over the bridges that could be raised to allow ships to cross harbors. No boats passed now. There would be no trade today.

  To her left, the Great Harbor was clogged with ships of a different sort. Roman galleys, filled with a new legion of soldiers to fortify the first and ensure Egypt’s submission.

  Sophia directed their steps from her place in the center of the dozen men. Along the outskirts of the royal quarter, to draw less attention. Through the Beta district with its narrow streets and tiny shops, closed against what was to come.

  The streets were deserted, but the rooftops as crowded as the stadium during the games. Strange catcalls fell on them as they passed through homes and shops. Clearly the townspeople did not know what to make of twelve pirates and the lighthouse keeper crossing the city.

  But then something shifted. Sophia was not sure if she felt it physically, in the wind, in the sounds of the city, or if it happened somewhere deep inside her, in the deeper part of her that was connected to Alexandria. But somehow, she knew.

  The battle had begun.

  She looked upward, to the flat rooftops of the city, and saw that the people there strained at the lips of their homes, their faces turned to the harbor. Her heartbeat seemed to slow.

  And then came the sound.

  The awful, wrenching sound of ships engaging, of a thousand military voices raised in battle cry, of a city manning its defenses. A chill shook Sophia’s body as though she were a reed beside the Nile.