In the three centuries since the city had been founded, the generations of Macedonian rulers—self-styled as proper Egyptian pharaohs, Caesarion was sure, only in order to better control their native subjects—had not forgotten the natural defensive advantages of their position, though to Caesarion’s mind they’d nevertheless grown complacent in strengthening the place. The city had achieved world-spanning fame and glory, fed by an unparalleled prosperity in trade between the Nile and the Mediterranean. But Alexandria’s enormous wealth had more often gone into the construction of great palaces and temples, the Great Lighthouse, the famed Library that was aided in its growth by the wide swaths of papyrus marshes around Lake Mareotis, the bigger and longer canals connecting lake and sea, city and river, the new harbors on the many waters, or the great seven-stadium-long causeway connecting the mainland to Pharos Island. The walls of the great city, so carefully planned out by Alexander, had served more often as barriers to its outspreading growth than as bulwarks essential to its survival. So it was to the city’s walls that Caesarion had focused most of his energies in the past months.
As he’d told the children, his first order of business, despite the Greek scholar’s note calling for urgency, was to sail southwest through the Great Harbor, past the shipyards and the temples beyond them, up to the Heptastadion itself. The massive causeway connecting the mainland and Pharos had been cleverly designed: splitting Homer’s natural anchorage into two distinct harbors—the Great Harbor itself and the less-famed Eunostos Harbor to the west—the Heptastadion was broken in two places by wooden bridges that not only served to allow water traffic to pass between the harbors but also could be burned in the case of an attempted land assault from Pharos. Caesarion and Khenti passed under the mainland-side bridge this morning, one of the oldest structures in the city, and they both examined the workings as best they could from beneath.
Alexander had built enormous water systems under Alexandria, deep canals that could be as wide as the streets that ran through the city above them. Caesarion saw the grate-covered spillway of one of the largest of them emptying out in the shadows just below the bridge. The little-used drain was flanked by twin weathered ledges of stone, each served both as a base for the massive wooden supports of the bridge above and as a platform to use the locked iron gates that allowed access to the undercity. At Caesarion’s order, large clay jars had been placed alongside the seabird nests amid the wooden bridge supports rooted at each platform, and more were set just inside each of the gates. The jars would all be filled with a highly explosive concoction of oils and minerals, Caesarion knew, and he was glad to see that they were in place: if an attacker took Pharos he could order the bridge removed in what would surely be a frightening and deadly conflagration.
Caesarion and Khenti had paid the boatman to carry them along the southern coast of the city as far as Kibotos, the box-shaped harbor that men had cut into the sandstone at the mouth of the river that ran between Mareotis and the sea. The boatman, knowing only that his two clients were paying in good coin and were well enough connected to be allowed to set foot on the royal island, did as he was instructed, keeping as close to the breakwaters as he could. There were hundreds of boats on the sea here: trading boats moving out toward the open sea, early morning fishing boats coming in from the same, and barges of grain moving down the river to Kibotos, where their goods were being transferred to bigger, oceangoing vessels. Everywhere there was motion, including, Caesarion noted with pleasure, along the walls framing Kibotos and passing south toward the western Necropolis, the great City of the Dead beyond the walls of Alexandria. As he had ordered, workmen were strengthening the fortifications there.
Assured that his instructions were being carried out as intended, Caesarion whispered to Khenti, who passed word in Egyptian to the boatman to take them ashore at Kibotos. The Navalia docks on the Great Harbor side of the Heptastadion were far closer to the Library, but Caesarion was confident that anyone trying to follow their little boat this morning would quickly lose it in the bustle of activity at Kibotos. One couldn’t be too careful.
Besides, with the increasingly dire news from the north, it would do him good to walk the wide, busy streets of his city again, thinking of simpler times, simpler fates.
And thinking, too, about what to do with Didymus in the end.
12
CLEOPATRA’S PLAN
ACTIUM, 31 BCE
Even here, on the relatively higher ground where Mark Antony had established his advanced base, Vorenus breathed in air that was rotten with death, seemingly held down beneath a clouded, starless sky. It was the stench of malaria, of thousands of men dead or dying, mixed with the thick heaviness of smoke that may or may not have been from the burning of wood. Trudging up the muddy road to the top of the hillock where Antony’s sprawling headquarters had been erected, knowing that tonight their fates might well be decided, Vorenus tried not to smell it as he took stock of the situation in his own mind.
They’d had some 22,000 men—mostly legionary marines—when they’d first taken up their position on the Actium Promontory to face Octavian’s armies on the northern side of the Gulf of Ambracia. Twenty-two thousand men, over five hundred warships, and a substantial portion of Egypt’s treasury as a war chest, held in the largest of Cleopatra’s own vessels on the water. There was hope, given Antony’s excellence as a land commander, that the war would be hastily concluded. And since they outmanned Octavian by several thousand men, the hope was high on their side.
Vorenus stepped aside as two hollow-cheeked men came down the path, pulling a handcart. Three emaciated, slack gray faces stared out from the back, shaking in lifeless motion to the bounce of the wheels. Three more Roman dead from the malaria or the starvation or the despair—it was getting harder to tell the man-killer these days.
Vorenus watched them without emotion, without surprise. He’d seen too much of war to have much hope for anyone’s future in the field. There were too many unknowns in the mud, in the blood. Too many factors that no one could foresee.
Octavian’s refusal to engage them, for instance. Who could have imagined it? The armies had faced each other across the narrow opening to the Gulf of Ambracia for most of a few months now, yet despite the occasional minor skirmish they’d never met in battle. Antony had sent challenges. Octavian had refused them. Antony ordered his forces to build a bridge across the mouth of the gulf to bring his men up to this advanced position, on the same ground as his adversary. Octavian had just fallen back to the strong defensive positions he’d been building to the north. Fallen back and waited in quiet confidence.
And for good reason, they now knew. In a surprise attack, Octavian’s admiral, Agrippa, had struck to their south, attacking the western Peloponnese with several hundred war galleys and close to ten thousand marines. He’d cut off their line of retreat and their line of supplies, effectively trapping them here at Actium amid the swamps and the bugs and the slaughtering disease.
Vorenus had not been alone in asking Antony to attack Octavian en masse as soon as they’d built the bridge. There was a chance, they thought then, of overrunning the enemy position before Octavian’s camp and defenses were in order. They would push them back to their ships or die trying.
But Antony—confident, boisterous, arrogant Antony—had refused the advice. He’d sent personal challenges to Octavian. He called on Octavian’s honor, on Octavian’s manhood. The adopted son of Caesar met all with silence or simple refusal, content to hold tight the knot of the noose he’d settled around them: armies to north and south, and his more numerous fleet of ships—now that Agrippa’s vessels had rejoined them—settled just out to sea, blockading the gulf. They were trapped, like a fox run to a blind alley.
Vorenus felt his jaw clenching as he watched the cart rumble away in the dark, and he forced himself to take a deep breath, to relax as much as he could. Not thinking, he nearly choked on the thick stench that rolled into his lungs.
Coughing the air out again, he sh
ook his doubts away and started to walk once more up the hill. It wasn’t his duty to question, he reminded himself. It was his duty to obey.
It was just death, after all.
* * *
Antony’s pavilion had more in common with a Roman villa than it did with the ragged tents that most of his men—eight men crowded to a shelter—had made their homes these months. The general’s quarters were solidly built: the cloth walls were framed square and taut with wooden bracing, the roof was tall and peaked by thick, stable poles crowned with flags that tonight hung unmoving in the still air, and the floor they encased was planked, perhaps the most rare but welcome of luxuries in an army camp.
The tendrils of smoke drifting from the roof venting and the slivers of light pooling out through gaps in the tent’s heavy sheets of cloth hinted at the brightness of the interior, so Vorenus squinted his eyes as he approached. Aside from the many lamps that would no doubt be lit within the tent, after all, he knew the light would be amplified by reflections from the gilded furnishings and other signs of opulence befitting the de facto throne room of Antony and the queen of Egypt. Sure enough, when the legionnaires on guard pulled aside the entrance flaps to admit Vorenus, he seemed for a moment to be stepping into the sun itself as he blinked away the shock of leaving night for bright noontime day. Only through the practiced steps of memory was he able to negotiate stepping up onto the wooden floor and out of the way of the quickly closed flaps without stumbling or running into the legionnaire guards posted just inside.
As the interior slowly contrasted out of the light, Vorenus saw with relief that he was not the last to arrive. Insteius and Caius Sosius were already there, standing over a table in the center of the room on which was spread a rolled-out map of Actium and the positions of the various forces on either side, but the third of their remaining Roman commanders, Delius, had not yet arrived. Neither had Antony nor Cleopatra graced them with their own presences.
Not comfortable enough to approach the map table, and knowing it would tell him little he did not already know about the enemy that had enveloped them, Vorenus made his way across the rug-covered planks to a triumphal-weapons rack beneath a decorative legionary standard. Insteius acknowledged him with a curt nod, but the two generals otherwise ignored him, whispering over the map.
Vorenus abruptly realized that at least some of the lamp oil burning in the room must be scented: the stench of decay was only just perceptible beyond a sweeter smell that reminded him of distant spring, of flowers and the memory of meadows.
The flaps moved again and a half-dozen lesser commanders, men he was certain would stay silent as flies on the wall through the meeting, entered and took up places on the opposite wall, trying to look self-assured. New to their positions of rank, Vorenus knew. Death and desertion tended to do that to an army.
Behind them, to his delight, came Titus Pullo, who was forced to duck low to step through into the light. The big man blinked once, twice, and then caught sight of Vorenus. He smiled—as only Pullo could in such conditions—and walked over to join his old friend.
“So,” Vorenus said, “you finally straightened out the watch, did you?”
“Had to knock a few heads together. But it’s settled now—for all the good it’ll do.”
Vorenus nodded. They both knew the watch was little more than a formality, really. Octavian was content to let starvation and disease take a toll far worse than his legionnaires could manage. The men knew it, too, and they had grown increasingly hostile to standing guard through the night. But duty was duty. Even when it made no sense.
“Vorenus?”
“Hmm?” Vorenus blinked up at his friend. “Sorry, I was thinking about something.”
“I asked if you’d seen Antony and Cleopatra,” Pullo repeated.
“I suspect they’re still in back,” Vorenus said, motioning to the cloth drapes that led out to the sleeping quarters the two shared. “Probably waiting to make an entrance.”
“Glad I’m not too late, then,” Pullo said. He was still smiling, but it was a grim expression, and there was a deep tiredness in his eyes.
They were simply too old for this, Vorenus knew. A couple of weathered men, far beyond their usefulness. It had been almost three decades since they’d sworn allegiance to the eagles of the legions. How was it that they were now fighting men who were children back when the two of them were hacking apart the barbarians alongside Julius Caesar? And how was it that they were fighting a son of Caesar? What had become of the world? It was like he’d fallen asleep one day and awoken in a different life.
The flaps at the entrance shifted again, and the last of the remaining generals, Delius, stepped through. He was wearing his full armor of breastplate and greaves, all neatly shined and gleaming in the lamplight. In the crook of his arm he held his formal bronze helm, its horsehair mane neatly combed for presentation. He took in the room slowly, barely betraying sensitivity to the stark light, before he strode up to the map table and set the fresh-polished helm upon it. Face hard, he leaned forward to stare at the maps before he whispered something to his two colleagues. Vorenus saw in their faces a hint of displeasure despite their efforts to remain calm.
“It’s true, then,” Pullo whispered.
“What’s true?”
“Walking here I heard a rumor that another of the magistrates failed to report for duty.”
Vorenus frowned. “That leaves three?”
“Aye,” Pullo said.
The sound of movement from within the bedchambers ceased the whispers in the room, and the guarding legionnaires reached out to pull aside the cloth doorway for the general. Antony, too impatient for such things, pushed through ahead of them, leaving the men grasping at the folds to keep them from falling back on the graceful Cleopatra, who glided straight-backed into the room in the wake of his pounding strides. Unlike the queen’s, Antony’s face was easily read: his cheeks were flushed with anger and frustration—perhaps, too, with wine—and his eyes flashed like a caged tiger’s despite the circles beneath them. The men in the room snapped to attention, saluting crisply as he settled into the heavy chair one step above the floor. “Reports,” he commanded.
Insteius and Caius Sosius exchanged glances before looking to Delius, but the third commander didn’t acknowledge them. He was staring, features taut, as Cleopatra moved around to stand behind Antony’s chair, her hips swaying beneath her fine linens and her wrists twisting to clink the ornate bracelets that wound around them like thin gold snakes.
Insteius swallowed hard before bringing his full attention to Antony. “My lord,” he said, “Delius brings word that another consular magistrate has failed to report. We’ve only three remaining.”
Antony didn’t blink. “Malaria?”
Insteius shook his head. “No, my lord. He’s gone to Octavian.”
Defection had been occurring in massive numbers in the past week as men from all levels of the army went to Octavian’s side. One more reason he was content to wait them out. The loss of any man was difficult for a commander, Vorenus knew, but losing a high-ranking man like a consular magistrate was a heavy blow indeed.
“The cause of this treachery?” Antony asked.
Insteius started to say something, but his jaw froze. Instead, it was Delius who spoke out, his voice strong and firm, coldly impassive. “You’ve asked the men to fight the son of a god for an Egyptian sorceress. Or so such men are saying,” he added.
Antony’s face darkened with blood, his eyes burning even more fiercely as he glared at Delius. “A sorceress, you say?”
“They say, my lord,” Delius replied evenly. “I … we … believe that the queen’s presence is, more than any other, the cause of the defections.”
Cords were twitching in Antony’s neck, and the muscles of his arms and legs seemed to be bunching as if he intended to throw himself down on his commanders, to throttle them with his bare hands. Before he could move, however, the long smooth fingers of Cleopatra draped over his should
er, gently restraining him to his chair. “They believe a woman on the battlefield is”—her painted lips parted sensuously, seemed to work around the word in Latin that she was searching for—“improper?”
Vorenus noted that Insteius and Caius Sosius seemed embarrassed to look at the queen. Delius, however, remained as he was: proud in his armor, eyes firm and certain. “Yes, my lady. Improper is the word. War is man’s work.”
“War is man’s work,” Cleopatra said. She stepped around Antony and paced back and forth before the men. Vorenus, watching her sinuous movements, was reminded of something, though at the moment he couldn’t place the image. “Do the men not realize their work would be difficult without the weapons they need to slay their enemies, the armor to deter their foes, the ships to bring them to their destination? Or is it that they have forgotten that all these things are bought with Egypt’s coin? My coin?”
The Shards of Heaven Page 14