From the palace roof the battle sounds were muffled, and a view of the entire harbor was afforded to her. She held her fingers aloft and formed a circle that encompassed all she could see.
Would that my fingers were a net I could draw around it all. A net drawn tight to secure her world, control it.
“Your friend is causing us some trouble.” He jutted his chin toward the lighthouse.
She dropped her hands. A flower brushed at her side and she tore it from its stem. “The lighthouse has always been Sophia’s duty to preserve.”
“Sophia.” He huffed out her name in derision. “You are young and naïve, Cleopatra. Too young to know when you have given too much power to someone who should not hold it.”
Cleopatra shredded the red flower petals and let them float to the rooftop. “Or perhaps I have secured the loyalty of those who already hold power.”
He looked sideways at her, his eyes narrowed. “No matter. She will not hold it long.”
“What have you done?”
He shrugged. “The light needs to be extinguished tonight. Our ships are all in the harbor. We do not need to guide in our enemy’s reinforcements.”
Cleopatra followed his gaze out to the lighthouse. Would he have Sophia killed? She wavered between the need to remain at Caesar’s side and the instinct to warn Sophia.
I need her. No one else loves me like she.
Caesar did not comment when she slipped from his side and crossed to the steps from the rooftop.
In her own chamber, Cleopatra lit an oil lamp and pulled out papyrus and ink. She leaned over the desk and scratched out a warning, then blew on the words to dry them. Some of the ink spread with the force of her breath. No matter. The message would be received.
She rolled the papyrus, tied it with a leather cord, and went to the door, intending to call for a servant to deliver it.
The door burst inward.
Cleopatra cried out, stumbled backward, dropped her missive.
They were Egyptian, that much she saw in the flash of dark skin and white skirts and angry eyes. She smelled the odor of sweat and battle, heard their exultant shout at finding her, and then their hands were on her arms like iron clamps.
They dragged her from the room. She did not go quietly.
In the hall outside her chamber she saw two guards in a pool of their mingled blood, throats slit.
Fear mixed with bile in her chest.
She dug her heels to the stone, pulled at their arms and yelled. They clawed at her, trying to keep their grip.
One of them let go to cut down another palace guard. But the guard hacked her attacker’s arm, before the sword went through him, and left him unable to hold both sword and Cleopatra.
The other grabbed her around the waist and flung her over his shoulder.
She pounded his back with her fists and kicked her feet into his gut.
They ran through the palace hall, and the memory surged of Apollodorus, bringing her to Caesar, rolled in a carpet, and slung on his back.
So long ago.
Footsteps pounded behind them. She tried to lift her head.
A shout, a clash of swords, a thrashing of legs and clothes and hair.
She was on the ground. Eyes closed. Breath coming in gasps.
Unhurt.
She bolted upright, swept the hall with her gaze.
Her attackers lay dead. Three Roman legionaries wiped their swords.
And Caesar knelt before her and swept her up in his arms. She closed her eyes and leaned against him.
“Are you hurt?” He touched her arms, her legs, her belly.
“I am well. Thank you. For rescuing me.”
He crushed her to himself. “I could not live if you had been taken from me.”
She smiled in his embrace and closed her eyes, a warmth spreading through her.
The road ahead stretched out with some uncertainty, but there in the arms of Rome’s most powerful man, Cleopatra knew her world was forever changed. She was learning new lessons in power now, and in the future she would wield the power with sure and steady hands.
She thought of the scribbled message to Sophia, still lying on the floor of her chamber. But it was only a fleeting thought, for in truth, she did not need Sophia any longer.
Caesar is mine.
Forty-Seven
From his dark and smoky vigil beside the extinguished lighthouse flame, Bellus heard the cry below him.
He leaped to his feet, sword drawn in one fluid motion, ears strained to hear any approach.
But the fight was far below, and only the strange acoustics of the lighthouse had carried the sound to him, as through a huge, vertical tunnel.
He stood inside the doorway of the uppermost tier, ready to spin down the steps.
Had the two servants brought help?
He tightened his grip on his sword, his jaw clenched. If he allowed them to light the fire, more troops would come and everyone in the lighthouse would be slaughtered. Could he kill a few innocents to save many? To save Sophia?
But then another cry shot upward to him, and he knew the voice.
It was hers.
He took the steps in pairs, twisting downward through the circular tier, then through the next doorway and down the steps of the octagonal. He slowed. The angry words were close now.
In the rose garden.
The thought was incongruous, somehow.
He braced his feet on the bottom step of the second tier, his back to the wall. Slowed his breathing. Listened.
A cultured laugh, arrogant and condescending. A mocking comment about himself, he suspected, that hardened the muscles of his arms and tightened his jaw.
A moan came from the floor near Bellus’s hiding place. Another voice joined the conversation, this one dulled with pain, near Bellus’s feet. “Kill her, Pothinus. Be done with it.”
Bellus flexed his fingers around the hilt of his gladius. He pivoted off the step, jumped over the figure that lay doubled on the floor. His blood surged, hot and fierce, in his veins.
Sophia saw him there behind Pothinus and another soldier. Her face was pale as the full moon, her eyes dark. A rush of desire to protect her filled his chest.
The Egyptian soldier whirled, in his hand an unlit torch. He swung it outward from his body. Bellus stepped to the side, out of range. He felt the thorns of blood-red roses prick his calves. Pothinus retreated to hide behind Sophia.
The Egyptian lifted the torch above his head, and Bellus felt a twinge of regret that it was not Pothinus whom he must kill.
The torch crashed down, but he dodged. Sophia cried out. Bellus spun an arc around the Egyptian and brought his sword between them, a sure and steady defense.
He saw Sophia move toward them, behind the Egyptian.
No, Sophia. Step back.
The Egyptian sensed his moment of fear, saw his distraction, knew the cause. He grinned, then swung the torch backward.
The heavy wood caught Sophia in the stomach. Bellus heard the air whoosh from her lungs, saw her crumple over the club.
Battle fury filled him.
Before the Egyptian could regroup for another thrust, Bellus ran at him. A scream tore from his throat. He drove the end of his sword into the Egyptian’s middle. The man’s eyes bulged and Bellus yanked the sword from his gut, breathing out his revenge.
Sophia lay on her side on the platform amid her roses, watching him with silent, smoky eyes.
His mind and heart churned with fear and with regret. Sophia.
He heard his sword clatter to the floor. He fell forward to Sophia, his eyes on hers.
But the emotions had made him foolish. Behind him, the scrape of sandals on wood. He turned only a moment before the second Egyptian fell upon him with a short dagger.
He scrambled for where his sword should have been sheathed. Not there.
The Egyptian’s blade dug into his shoulder.
Other side. Pugio. Fingers closed around it.
Up from below,
into the side of his attacker.
The blade was too short for death to be instant. The Egyptian’s fury carried him past the pain and he raised his own knife again.
From deep within, a yell of rage raced through Bellus’s chest, his throat. He brought his forearms against the man’s chest and shoved.
Back, back across the platform. Through the doorway. Past the steps upward. Past the ramp downward.
To the center shaft. Still he pushed and the Egyptian scrambled backward, until they slammed against the low wall that formed the shaft. Bellus stared into the whites of the man’s eyes until they tipped away with his head and shoulders, then were joined by his chest, his trunk, his legs. The Egyptian screamed as he fell, and the sound of it filled the shaft, as though he pitched straight into the Underworld itself.
Bellus fell against the wall, caught his breath. Replaced his pugio. Then stumbled back to the platform.
His shoulder bled, but the Egyptian’s knife had glanced off the muscle there.
But Sophia. Oh, Sophia.
Pothinus jerked his head left and right, as though searching for another way off the platform. Below them, Bellus heard the second centuria crash through the wooden door. Bellus fought the conflict for a moment between revenge and concern for Sophia, then left Pothinus to the Roman legionaries that even now filled the Base.
He ran to where she lay, her breath shallow and eyes fluttering. Pothinus pushed past them both and took to the ramp.
“Where are you hurt?” Bellus ran his hands over her arms, her legs, searching for blood and finding none.
She swallowed. “I—I do not know. My stomach. My ch—chest.” Her breath caught.
Bellus dared not turn her. He felt carefully for broken ribs, fearing a pierced lung. She did not cry out at his touch, which eased his concern.
But something was wrong. Her face seemed even more bloodless than before.
“The moon is full,” she whispered. “He will finish tonight.”
“Don’t speak, Sophia.” Bellus stood and rushed to the platform’s wall. Beneath him, he could see the harbor battle beginning to slow but not yet won. He could see the island, the heptastadion. The pocket of fighting near the village was nothing to what he could see was coming. It looked as though Caesar had released several hundred soldiers to the island.
He returned to Sophia, knelt beside her, and gripped her hand. “There is no way to bring a physician yet. Rest now.”
She lifted her free hand to touch his face, smiled, and tried to breathe deeply. “You came back,” she whispered.
Bellus wrapped his own trembling hand around her fingers and held them to his cheek. “Where else would I go?”
The strength of her arm failed and he lowered her hand to her side. His eyes filled with tears borne of fear and of longing.
Sophia moistened her lips, tried to speak.
“Rest, my lady,” he said, his voice thick in his throat.
She shook her head. “I must tell you.” The words were soft, like a fragile silk thread spun through the night, like the petals of the flowers that surrounded them.
“Tell me,” he said.
Her chest rose and fell with labored breaths. “I never thought . . .” Her face twisted in pain, and Bellus gripped her hand. Her words came in a rush then, as though she feared she would run out of time to say them. “I never thought I could love again.” She smiled, full and sweet. “Lucius, you taught me to love again.”
He kissed her fingers, tears blurring his vision of her.
She spoke again. “I know—I know you came for the light—”
He moaned, her hand still held to his lips. “I am so sorry, Sophia. I had to put it out. Caesar would have killed you all—”
She pressed her fingers weakly against his mouth. “I know. I cannot save everyone. That is the past.”
Her own eyes filled and overflowed. He brushed away the tears that ran along her temples. “It was not your fault, Sophia. What happened to Kallias and your baby. It was not your fault.”
She smiled. “So much to tell,” she whispered. Then sucked in breath as though a fresh injury assailed her.
“Not now,” Bellus said, though he knew it could be forever.
She nodded, and he knew she thought the same. “It is better this way.”
“I cannot live without you, Sophia.”
She smiled again, her lips white. “You will go back to Rome. A hero. Go back to your beautiful woman.”
He frowned. “What woman?”
“Valeria. Your letter.” Her eyes fluttered. “She is beautiful, you said.”
Bellus lifted her head to cradle it in his hand. “No, Sophia! I never—When I threw that letter at you, it was to prove that outward beauty is nothing. She is vapid and selfish and stupid. You could not think that I would want—”
Sophia’s eyes closed, but her face seemed to light from within and her smile came from a place of peace.
Bellus pulled her upper body to his lap, leaned over her precious face, growing still. “No, Sophia. No.” He bent his head to hers, kissed her with all the longing in his heart. “Do not leave me. Not now.”
Her body relaxed in his arms and his tears flowed over her like an anointing.
“I love you,” he whispered. “Sophia, I love you.”
He knew nothing then, except that when he looked upon her, he saw that she seemed transformed into the most lovely creature he had ever beheld. Like a goddess come to earth, come to enchant him, to steal his heart and capture his soul and leave him nothing more than a shell, aching for the beauty he had once known.
Above them, the moon poured its full face upon the open roses, and the sky sprinkled dew like tears.
Forty-Eight
Low voices. Muffled by Egyptian flax. Pinpricks of light. More darkness.
Sleep.
Hands probing. Whispering. Light and dark fluttering. Falling, falling. Darkness again.
Warmth. Sun-warmth on her face. Heavy, heavy lids struggling to open to the morning sun, to the night’s torches, to the sun again.
And then a face sharpening into focus before her, a beloved face, smiling, smiling at her.
“Ares.” Her voice was dry as the western desert, her tongue thick and her throat burning with a thousand suns.
“Drink,” he said.
Watered wine moistened her lips, gentle as morning rain. She sucked at it greedily.
Time passed, she knew not how much. When she awoke again, the afternoon sun slanted through the windows of her private chamber.
Her wakening did not go unnoticed. Ares was beside her in a moment, kneeling at her couch, touching her hair. Sosigenes stood behind him. At the edge of her vision, Diogenes.
“How long?” she croaked.
Diogenes bustled forward. “You’ve been sleeping two days, Sophia.” He laid a hand on her forehead. “We had some trouble with fever, but it seems past. Your injuries were all of the internal sort. Not much we could do but watch and wait.” His eyes softened. “And pray.”
She lifted her hand to weakly grip his. “Thank you.”
He snorted. “Do not thank me. Thank these others.” He extended a hand to Ares and Sosigenes. “And your Roman. They hauled me up to that the rose garden of yours like a pile of dung fuel on that cursed lift. Imagine!”
Sophia smiled.
“Do not laugh. They brought you down in the same manner, my lady!” He shook his head at the indignity, then turned his head to a noise at the door.
She tried to follow his gaze but did not have the strength. The men before her backed away.
And then he was there beside her, on his knees, her face in his hands.
“Speak to me, Sophia,” he whispered. “Say my name.”
She reached for him. “Lucius. Pilus Prior Lucius Aurelius Bellus.”
He threw his head back and laughed, as though he had held the laughter in clay pots for many years.
Ares knelt beside them.
“Lucius,” she sa
id, but put her hand to her son’s face.
“I know,” he laughed again. “Your son. Back in your arms.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. “Ares, bring me the engraved box on my desk.”
He returned a moment later. She struggled to sit up, and the two men helped her. Ares laid the box in her lap. She lifted the lid, studied its contents.
“For you, Ares.” She brought out the granite device and the little marble to place in his hands. “Your father made it. He was a good man.” She found his eyes with her own. “I do not know how I never saw him in you.”
Ares’s eyes shown as he took the device.
Sophia reached into the box again and brought out a small object. She held it to Bellus, suddenly uncertain.
He smiled at the blue scarab stone in her hand, then closed his own fingers over it. “We do not need luck, Sophia. Someone greater than us watches over our affairs.”
The door scraped open again, and more men poured into the room. Sophia smiled at each of the scholars who had made the climb to see her. She held out a hand as they clustered around her.
The room was so full. Overflowing with people. Full of color and light, laughter and life. Sophia fell back against her cushions, and contentment and belonging spread through her, warmed her.
The men talked among themselves, but Bellus’s attention was all for her.
“What of the battle?” she asked him.
He nodded, his face grim. “The fighting has been fierce, with many losses on both sides. But when word of Roman reinforcements marching around the Delta came to the city, the people yielded. The Egyptian army still stands afar off. They cannot win.”
Sophia nodded, her heart heavy for the people, but glad the battle had ended. “Any word of Cleopatra?”
“She presides at Caesar’s side in the palace. Her brother Ptolemy has been sent to join his army.”
“A death sentence,” Sophia said.
“Perhaps. We must wait to see what becomes of Egypt in the hands of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar.”
“Pothinus?”
“Executed. Yesterday.”
Sophia sighed and laid her head back. “So much death.”
Keeper of the Flame Page 30