Ave, Caesarion (The Rise of Caesarion's Rome Book 1)

by Deborah Davitt

  “No, sir. I won’t decline it.”

  “Then get yourself cleaned up, and get this shit off my floor.” Caesarion gestured down at the blood in disgust. “This is a damned hazard. Apparently, all a Magus needs to send spirits to plague you or enslave you is your blood or your seed. Do you really think that the Magi are the only magic-users in the world to have discovered that trick?”

  Malleolus’ face couldn’t have gone any chalkier than it was already, but his eyes widened. “I’ll get it cleaned up, sir.”

  “Do so.” Caesarion stalked out, wanting to mutter under his breath, and swept by the scores of legionnaires in the barracks who suddenly had found dice games or gear repairs that needed studious attention.

  On returning to his own rooms, he lifted Eurydice out of the bed, so that the servants could change the soiled linens and wash her. He turned his face away as they did so, handling her as gently as a babe. Then he tucked her into her bed in the private quarters, and took a stool beside the bed to read out loud to her. A scroll of Lysistrata. Taking care to explain each dirty joke as he did. “People would be scandalized if they walked in without knocking,” he told her unconscious form. “But I want you to wake up laughing.” Wake up, he urged silently. It’s been two days. I healed your body. Whatever happened to your mind and soul, however . . . it has to have healed by now. Wake up.

  A few minutes of reading later, she stirred, and a frown creased her brow. Slowly, her eyes opened, still the same hawk-gold they’d been the last time he’d seen them. “Eurydice?” Caesarion asked, letting the scroll roll up and reaching for her hand. “Are you awake?”

  She nodded, rasping out through dry lips, “I never understood that part.”

  Caesarion blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  “The play . . . you were reading it.” Harsh croak to her disused voice. “Why . . . why do the women swear . . . that they won’t crouch like lions on the handle of a knife?”

  Caesarion put his head down on her pillow, torn between the relief of tears, which his discipline wouldn’t allow him, and laughter, which was at least permissible in a man. “You’re all right,” he finally said, between chortles. “You’re all right, and you’re you.”

  “What’s so funny?” Eurydice’s voice remained a croak, but she sounded confused under the laryngitic rasp.

  “They’re swearing that they won’t . . . crouch on hands and knees . . . so that their husbands can take them from behind.” He kissed her hand.

  “Oh.” Her voice suggested that she still hadn’t understood properly.

  “Here. You haven’t had much to drink—your throat’s dry. Let me get you something.” He set the scroll aside entirely, and went to pour her a cup of water from a pitcher in the room, and helped her sit up to drink it. “Your eyes are still golden,” he told her. “Come back from flying, dear one. Please.”

  She looked up at him wonderingly. “I’m not flying,” Eurydice said, reaching up to touch his face. “I see you clearly. Through my own eyes.”

  Baffled, Caesarion held up the silver cup from which she’d drunk, letting her see her own reflection. Watched the dark lashes blink repeatedly in astonishment as she saw her own eyes this way for the first time. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  He kissed her cheek. “I think the gods may have decided to mark you more visibly,” he murmured, tapping one finger by his own red eyes in explanation. “So no one can possibly argue that you’re not god-born anymore. Not even you.” Another quick, light kiss, to her forehead this time. “Hungry? Or do you need to use the lavatory?”

  “Both.” The emphasis in her voice couldn’t be denied. Caesarion laughed, nearly giddy with relief, and helped her to her feet. She’d been put to bed in a thin robe to guard her modesty from the various well-meaning visitors they’d received in the past few days.

  And proved so wobbly on her feet that he had to help her to the indoor lavatory, with its wooden seat with a hole cut through, positioned over a pail that would be removed every few hours and dropped into a cesspit further from the building. “Better than the outdoor latrine,” Caesarion told her, politely averting his eyes as she looked for the sponge-stick in the communal pail of cleansing water. “Open-air. You’d have to deal with all the well-wishers walking by and wanting to ask you how you’re feeling, while you’re trying to do what you’re doing.”

  Eurydice managed a laugh, and lurched back to her feet—and he caught her hands quickly, escorting her back to their private quarters as quickly as he could. The last thing he wanted was for Licina Fabia, who’d been by both of the last two afternoons, to spot them and spend the next twenty minutes chattering and asking how Eurydice felt. “Food next,” he told her, and called down the hall for Nesa and Salatis.

  The older Egyptian servants were delighted to see her awake. Nesa, who’d been her wet-nurse, went so far as to embrace her lightly, and fussed cheerfully over her while combing her hair. And Salatis, who had a face like old leather, allowed his dignity to crack enough to permit himself a smile, before scuttling off to the canteen area of the camp to bring back as much food as he could carry. Humble fare in the field, and what was best for a convalescent’s stomach—cooked puls, a grain porridge. Soft-cooked grouse eggs, stolen from nearby bird nests. And for Caesarion, the adult birds themselves, roasted on a skewer, and stewed field greens, like taraxacum and cress. Smelling the food, he suddenly realized how hungry he was, but he waited to eat. He needed to help her with her spoon when her fingers shook too much to get the puls to her lips at first. And then, as the tremors subsided as she got food into her belly, he took his seat across from her, clasped one of her hands in his, and tore into the grouse with his teeth and his free hand.

  Nesa and Salatis hovered over them the entire meal. Making sure that their cups never emptied of vinegar-touched water. Finally replete, Caesarion dismissed them, and Nesa gave Eurydice one more motherly squeeze of the shoulders, before leaning down to whisper something in her ear, at which Eurydice flushed and laughed.

  With the door shut behind the servants, and the headquarters building creaking a little as the temperature dipped after sunset, Caesarion asked, smiling, “What did she say?”

  Eurydice flushed more deeply. “That she’d . . . she’d never had the pleasure of seeing a pharaoh and his queen so in love before.”

  Caesarion considered that for a moment. He’d been open in his emotions in front of the Egyptian servants. They weren’t shockable in this case; in fact, they clearly approved. Egyptian cultural norms weren’t those of Rome. But I probably wore my emotions too openly in front of the troops, he realized. When I brought her back. I kissed her on the lips. I asked her what good the Eagle of Rome was, without the Hawk of Egypt. He swallowed. “I’m going to pay for all of this someday. For feeling this much joy,” Caesarion whispered. “Rome will find a way to steal it all from us. But that day isn’t today.” He leaned forward to kiss the palm of her hand. “Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia.” Where I am Gaius, you are Gaia. The heart of the Roman rite of marriage. Symbolizing the union of two minds, two wills, two hearts, becoming one, and the woman joining the man’s family.

  Her golden eyes went wide. “Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia,” Eurydice echoed. “But I have no torch to carry from my family’s hearth to extinguish in the water. We have no witnesses.”

  “The words are what count. And the gods are our witnesses. Rome will never recognize our marriage as valid. We could bring them twelve Egyptian priests to swear that we are wed. Pharaoh and queen. They’ll never accept it. But just because they won’t, doesn’t make it any less true.” Caesarion swallowed. “You’re the only woman I will ever acknowledge as my queen. They might force me to marry other women for political reasons in the future—how, I don’t know—but you will be my acknowledged Empress and queen of Egypt from the moment we conceive our first child.” He hated the necessity of concealing everything, but . . . did he dare do otherwise? Until Rome’s well and truly used to seeing her at my side .
. . perhaps not.

  Her face paled. “They’ll hate you for it. They’ll hate me for it.”

  “They can hate me all they want. I’m the paterfamilias of the damned Empire. Rome and Egypt are now fractious step-siblings in my house, and they will get along and follow my commands. Or they will face the consequences.” Caesarion’s jaw tightened. “And given the fact that the Tenth and Seventh gave you the grass crown while you slept, beloved—the only woman ever honored so!—the plebes and the patricians will have to go through them to get to you. Not to mention the survivors of the Tillii. Who may well worship the ground you walk on for saving their lives.”

  She squirmed a little in her chair, looking deeply embarrassed. He stood, still holding her hand, and came around the table to stroke her face. “I’m giving them to you,” he murmured. “You get to decide their fate. If they live. If they die. I personally recommend making them the core of a new legion. The Sixteenth, actually. And since every Legion needs a name and a symbol, make them the Accipitris.” The hawks, just as the Fifth was the Alaude, or larks, and the Sixth was the Ferrata, or Ironclad. “You’re going to need them. Whenever I send you to Egypt.” He swallowed, not wanting to think of that day. Praying that it lay far, far in the future.

  Eurydice’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t send me away now,” she whispered. “I want to stay here in Hispania. With you.”

  Caesarion caught her to him, tightly. “Part of me wants to send you home to Rome,” he admitted into her hair. “I came so damned close to losing you—”

  “No! No, don’t send me away!” It was a soft wail. “I can’t help if I’m in Rome. All I can do is sit in a box of a room, shut away from the sky, reading reports and praying that you’re alive. The only time I’m alive, is when I’m with you—”

  He cut the words off with a kiss, cradling her face with his hands. He’d meant it to be light and gentle, respectful of her convalescence, but she leaned up into him so ardently, wrapping her arms around his neck so tightly, that he responded. And his response fueled hers, until he realized he’d carried her to his bed. Caesarion lifted his lips away, breathing hard, and whispered, “I don’t want to wait for joy anymore, beloved. Life is too damned short as is. I almost lost you,” he repeated, his throat tightening again. “But you’re still recovering—”

  She covered his lips with her fingertips, stilling his words. “Ubi tu Gaius, ego Gaia,” Eurydice whispered, her own throat aching at the look on his face. The expression of torment at the thought of losing her—the same emotion she felt every time he mentioned sending her away. “I’m your wife now, Caesarion. My eagle. I always will be, no matter how many oceans they put between us. Love me.”

  “You’re sure?” he whispered against her ear. “Every time we bring our bodies together, it could be the time that ends us. Beginning our marriage in truth? Holds the seeds of our separation in it.”

  “I love you,” she replied simply. “And I’m just as tired as you are, of waiting for joy.”

  Then no words. Just kissing and exploring. Stripping off his tunic and her robe, and what little they each wore under that. They’d never been naked together—he’d been careful of that—and he chuckled at her surprised expression when she finally saw what she’d felt pressed against her many times before. “Not quite as bad as at the theater?” he asked, kissing her again as he pressed her back against the rush-filled mattress. He didn’t want her to feel intimidated or afraid, but the wide-eyed stare was flattering.

  “Oh gods,” she said, pulling a pillow over her face to muffle her laughter. “That is not an image I want in my mind at the moment!”

  “Then let me drive it from your thoughts,” he murmured, and moved over her body, positioning himself. A final moment of hesitation, and he pulled the pillow away from her face to kiss her thoroughly. “Last chance to change your mind,” Caesarion told her tightly, riding atop his own urgency. “Once I’m inside you, I don’t think I’m going to be able to stop.”

  She kissed him. “I’m sure.”

  “There will be pain the first time,” he warned.

  “I know. But your fingers always make me feel wonderful. The pain will pass, and then nothing but joy.”

  “I think you’re trying to talk me into it, beloved.” He paused. “You’re doing a wonderful job of reassuring me and calming my nerves on our wedding night.”

  She laughed, her whole body arching with the peals, and that was the moment he slid forward into her. A brief moment of consternation as he did so—This is my Rubicon, he thought, dazed. This is the moment that the die is cast. No going back. He closed his eyes, and whispered as gently as he could, “Relax. Be easy, it’s all right . . . .” And as she did so, he groaned as he slid the rest of the way home. “The gods did make us for each other.”

  “Oh?” Confusion in her voice.

  “We fit perfectly. Lock and key. Gods. You have no idea how rare that is, beloved.” He kissed her until he felt her body ease completely.

  And after that brief moment of pain and fear, nothing but pleasure. She reached out and slid her mind into his. Joined their powers together. And felt as if they’d become one with the gods. She was Venus and Isis, and he was Mars and Osiris, and they were one.

  Cooling off a little while later, he nuzzled her neck lightly, feeling the night air steal in from the shuttered window. And kissing and nuzzling led to whispered confidences about the shocking suggestions had been in Lysistrata. “Can you bear me again, if I’m very gentle—”

  “I’m not sure I want gentle.” Her voice was a purr. “Fierce was so much fun.”

  And loving each other again and again, all through the night and into the dawn.

  ____________________

  Caesarion must have dozed in the gray hours before the buccinae sounded to wake the whole camp and signal the change of the watch. The evidence? His eyes opened in the dim light streaming in through the shutters, and he felt the warmth of a soft body against his in his narrow camp bed. He glanced down and smiled when he found Eurydice’s head pillowed on his chest. Then it wasn’t the best love-dream I’ve ever experienced. He edged her away gently to sit up on the edge, trying to marshal his thoughts. Can’t do that often, unfortunately. Camps like these have ears in the damned walls. And sooner or later, Nesa and Salatis won’t be guarding the door, and some idiot courier will slip through and find us in the same bed, and I’m not ready to make this particular announcement to the Senate. I need my power consolidated and unshakeable before I grab the foundation of Rome’s ideology and shake it . . . .

  So. You’re finally awake. Do you plan to make yourself presentable in front of me, or are you going to sit there with your cock hanging out?

  The voice was familiar. He’d heard it all his life, as a distant whisper at the back of his head. But never had it sounded so close. Caesarion’s head jerked up, and his mouth fell open. For leaning against the windowsill now, a tall figure loomed, wearing a mix of armor, some of which hadn’t been used in Rome in hundreds of years . . . but somehow looked whole, when seen together. As if he’d worn these pieces and parts for so long, and only replaced the worn bits when needed—or when something better came along.

  An Etruscan-style corselet of overlapping thin strips of bronze, sewn to a leather backing, left his arms bare, but below it, a heavy set of leather pteruges, studded with iron swung over his legs, identical to the ones that Caesarion wore, himself. A helmet of the same tawny bronze perched atop his head, decorated with red plumes, and his shield was small and round, not the wide rectangle of laminated wood and leather that the legions carried these days. But the sword that swung at his side was modern. Good, solid iron, with a hilt wrapped in leather, well-worn to the hand that held it. No beard, though statues usually portrayed him with a wild, unkempt beard and longer hair. No—he looked like any number of legionnaires today. A day’s worth of stubble that needed to be scraped off his jaw, and shorn hair under the helmet. But his eyes were as red as Caesarion’s own. And
his face—he has my father’s face. How is that possible?

  It is possible because for the last thirty years, when any of my people have thought of the face of War, they have imagined your father’s visage. A faint smile crossed those stern lips. In time, you may come to see your father’s lineaments in your own. And my face and yours will seem not so dissimilar. Particularly when our people come to see you as the living face of War, as well. He paused. You know me, of course.

  Caesarion lurched to his feet, his spine stiffening to attention automatically, and frantically grabbed his tunic from where he’d tossed it on a table the night before, yanking it over his head. “Mars Pater. Or . . . Mars Gravidus.” Mars, father of Rome. Or Mars, the guardian of soldiers. Caesarion bowed his head with deep respect. I’ve never been honored with his direct presence before. I may have mightily offended him—

  Offended me? No. Mars smiled thinly at him. I have been watching your career with great interest, son of Caesar. Never have I seen any of my children so reluctant to perform their duty. Particularly one that promised so much pleasure. His ironic gaze flicked to the bed behind Caesarion, and the god-born man winced. But at last, our dilatory children have put their reluctant feet on the path that fate requires of them.

  Our children? Caesarion didn’t dare look away from the god’s face, but he became aware of a subtle change in the currents of air in the room. The rustle of silken fabric. The rich smell of flowers—explained easily as a vine inched its way through the shutters and bloomed abruptly. And a female figure moved to Mars’ side, leaning into him. Hair the color of molten honey, and eyes of the self-same hue. The same color, actually, as Eurydice’s now. Venus smiled at him, and Caesarion felt the rest of his body come to attention in the same way that his spine had, moments before. Oh, gods. “Venus Genetrix?” he managed to whisper hoarsely. Venus the Mother. Please, please, be Venus the Mother. I already honored Venus Obsequens, aspect of passion, last night. Thoroughly.