The Triumphant, page 13
The walls of the Ludus Achillea were high and hard to climb. But they wouldn’t hold forever. And if we were caught behind them, without Caesar, Aquila could afford to be patient. The thought of it hit me like a fist to my heart. After everything that had happened—everything we’d all fought so very hard for—the home we’d built was nothing more than sticks and stones standing in the way of a deluge. Without Caesar’s protection . . . we would be swept away.
I turned away from Elka, unable to answer. Across the courtyard, I saw Sennefer backing out the doorway of Cleopatra’s quarters, his hands raised in a placating gesture. I heard the slam of the door and saw his shoulders slump, and I remembered suddenly the conversation I’d had with the queen’s chief steward the last time I’d seen him, when he’d led me down to the boat the queen had given me on the night we’d retaken the ludus from Aquila.
“If the great general topples,” he’d said, “then Cleopatra will have no friend here in the land of the Romans. They hate women. They hate powerful women. They hate her, most of all.”
He’d been expecting this day to come all along. I wondered if Cleopatra had. Up until that moment, I’d only thought of getting her somewhere safe. But I suddenly realized there was nowhere safe. Nowhere within the bounds of the Republic, at least. Not for her. Maybe not for any of us. I looked around at the faces of those gathered there: my sister, Kronos, Elka, Charon and Quint, Cai . . .
All of them stood there, waiting to hear what I would say.
Even Sorcha deferred to me in that moment in a way that she never had before. We’d come so far together in such a short time—since that day when she’d bought me at a slave auction for far too much money, so she could save my life. Now it was my turn to try to save someone else’s.
“We can’t just abandon the ludus and run,” I said. “If we must go—and I know, I’m sorry, Elka, but we must—we can’t just all scatter to the ends of the world like leaves on the wind. I say we do it on our own terms. And I say we do it for a worthy cause.”
“And that would be?”
“Saving Cleopatra.”
Sorcha’s eyes went wide, her glance darting out to the garden, to where Sennefer had taken up a position squatting on his haunches, his voluminous striped robes tucked around him and the naked blade of a curved sword resting across his knees, outside the queen’s door.
“They’ll kill her if they get their hands on her,” I said. “Just like they killed Caesar. Unless we protect her. All of us, together.”
Elka’s frown disappeared, and she took a deep breath and nodded. “Well, there’s nothing more to argue beyond that then, is there?” she said, the matter—to her mind—decided beyond doubt. “I’ll help round up the others.”
My sister’s gaze drifted around the room, taking in all of us, one by one, and then settled on Charon’s face.
He nodded before she uttered a word and said, “Cosa. Less than two days’ journey if we push it. There will be ships there that will take us to Alexandria.”
“Are any of those ships yours?” I asked him.
“No,” he said. “But there will be traders there I know. We’ll ask for passage.”
“And if they say no?” I said.
“We’ll ask again. Less politely.”
Sorcha nodded at me and Elka. “Gather the girls,” she said. “Tell them to pack essentials only. But we travel equipped. We leave at first light, before sunrise.”
“And the ludus itself?” I asked, a painfully tight knot in my throat.
“Burn it. Burn it to the ground,” she said, and swept past me out of the room.
XI
AFTER ELKA AND I told the others what was happening and to get what sleep they could before the coming morn, I went to seek out Cleopatra before I retired to my own bed one last time. By then, I knew, Sorcha would’ve told the queen what had happened to her lord, but I still felt the need to speak to her myself. I was the one who’d seen it happen. I owed it to Cleopatra to speak to her directly. And I dreaded having to do it. I think, in truth, I half expected her to put a knife in my guts for not having been able to stop Caesar’s murderers from doing the same to him. I’m not sure I would have blamed her.
I found Cleopatra still in the guest quarters Sorcha kept for her. I knew she was in there because, outside, Sennefer remained squatting by the door in the darkness with his sword. And because, inside, I could hear the sound of things shattering.
The queen’s chief steward and I exchanged wordless glances as I pushed open the door and stepped carefully over the threshold. A dozen lamps were lit, throwing enough light for me to see the room and its lone occupant clearly. The sight of the queen of Aegypt in mourning was shocking—not at all what I was expecting. I suppose I should have been used to that where Cleopatra was concerned. I had, of course, expected passionate emotions from her. Just not the particular manner in which she chose to express them. I’d expected her—with her flair for dramatics—to be overcome with grief, perhaps tearing at her hair or rending her garments. But Cleopatra was the furthest thing from distraught. Instead, she stood in the middle of the room: regal, composed . . . and methodically picking up every breakable item within arm’s reach, one at a time, only to hurl whatever it was at the far wall.
There was already a substantial pile of glass and pottery shards at the base of the mural painted there, which bore the stains of a multitude of cosmetic pigments and the wine of, I guessed, several amphorae. I watched silently for a moment as she went about her business, calmly wreaking material carnage, until finally she sensed my presence.
She turned to look over her shoulder, beckoning me to enter with a wave of her hand, and I bit my cheek at the sight of her face. Cleopatra’s expression remained utterly impassive, but the thick black lines of kohl that were always so meticulously and artfully applied around her lovely eyes had mixed with tears and run in dark rivulets down her face, spattering the front of the elegant linen sheath she wore with ugly black blots. I shivered, remembering the dripping paint of the grotesque eyes on the practice dummy in the arena.
“Majesty,” I choked out, swallowing hard against the knot in my throat and bowing my head to hide my dismay.
Wordlessly, she shifted her attention back to her breakables.
I hovered there in the doorway, wondering if I shouldn’t just turn around and leave the queen alone. I wondered if I should attempt some kind of . . . what? Comfort? Commiseration? I had, truthfully, no idea. The most powerful woman in the world had just lost her great love—the most powerful man in the world—to hideous violence. I had no idea what she was feeling.
Except, perhaps, pure, incandescent, ice-cold rage . . .
“I would have every last one of them strung up in the desert to be flayed alive by sandstorms,” I heard her say as she picked up a blue glass perfume bottle and hurled it at the wall. It smashed into a thousand pieces, filling the room with a heady waft of cypress and lotus blossom. She picked up a pot of cheek rouge next. “I would carve out their eyes with my own golden knife and feed them to the vultures, one by one.” Another smash, another stain on the wall.
I didn’t know if she was speaking to me, or to the air, or to the gods themselves. But it sounded as if she had been uttering these variations of a death curse with each bauble or bit of crockery sacrificed.
“I would fill their mouths with scorpions and seal their lips with molten lead.” She picked up a hand mirror made of solid polished silver and, with one last heave, launched it at the wall. When it made a dull thud and only cracked off a chunk of plaster instead of shattering, Cleopatra sighed—a sound halfway between disappointment and exhaustion—and sank down on the couch, her fury seemingly spent. For the moment, at least.
She turned and beckoned me forward again with a wave of her hand.
Before joining her, I searched a side table and found the one small wine jug she hadn’t obliterated in her rage and two exquisite, lapis-inlaid goblets. I poured out two measures, handing one to the queen, then sat on the couch opposite hers and waited.
She took a sip and nodded thanks.
“Tell me, Fallon.” She gazed down at the dark kohl stains on the dress she wore, plucking at them as if she couldn’t quite figure out how they got there. “Did he die honorably?”
Very honorably, I wanted to say. He went down fighting like the conqueror he was, wresting a blade from the hands of his assailants and drawing more blood than he spilled . . .
Except I couldn’t. I owed her the truth, however ugly and horrid it was.
“No,” I said. “There was no honor in it, Majesty. It was cheap and it was dirty and Caesar stood no chance. Sheer numbers took your lord. His attackers were like a pack of hyenas on a lion, and you are right to curse the heads of every single one of the filthy curs responsible.”
She nodded. “Thank you. I wanted to know the truth before everyone tells me how valiant my lord was in the moments before they cut him down.” She drank from the cup I’d given her. “Did you recognize any of them? Caesar’s murderers?”
I hesitated. In truth, I’d be hard-pressed to identify a single senator at a triumphal parade even if they wore plaques hanging from their necks with their names written on them. I told Cleopatra as much, apologetically. But then I also told her of how I had recognized Pontius Aquila—and how he’d slithered out of the shadows like a snake after the terrible deed was done.
She wasn’t the least bit surprised.
But then I remembered one other thing. One other face.
“Marcus Junius Brutus . . .”
Cleopatra repeated the name after me, pronouncing each syllable like an invocation of his impending doom. I told her what Kronos had reported. About Brutus’s impromptu funeral orations—and Antony’s rabble-rousing rebuttal—and how it had inflamed the mob and resulted in the direct opposite reaction the conspirators had been hoping for. That almost brought a smile to her face. I picked up the little wine jug and refilled the queen’s goblet.
“I still find it hard to believe,” I said, “that a man like Brutus would have anything to do with this kind of perfidy.” I shook my head. “He is, by every account, an honorable man.”
“Caesar certainly thought so,” Cleopatra said flatly. “Brutus was dear to him. Almost like a son.”
“I would have expected it more from a creature like Antony.”
But she wagged a finger at me saying, “Honorable men, Fallon, are often the ones who are easiest to manipulate. All you have to do is turn their sense of justice against their better judgment.” She laughed bitterly. “As for Antony, he is a politician and a survivor. He has his own dearly held vices and he doesn’t need to participate in anyone else’s. In fact, to do so would probably just get in his way—Antony worships Antony alone. It’s one of the things I admire about him.”
I was silent for a moment. Then I said, “You know we have to leave soon?”
“Yes, I know,” she sighed. “I must flee the Republic like a guilty thief and disappear into the night. Sennefer has already descended upon me like a flock of pecking hens and told me of this plan of yours and Sorcha’s.” A wan grin touched her lips. “Thank you, Fallon, for having a care for this poor bedraggled queen.”
“You are hardly that.”
“Don’t flatter, dear. I looked into that mirror before I threw it at the wall.” She shook her head, and the golden beads woven into her hair flickered like sparks. “Sennefer also told me we’ll be traveling light. I thought, since I won’t be bringing any of this with me . . .” She waved a hand at the shattered remains of her usual complement of worldly comforts. Then she tossed back the rest of her wine and hurled the goblet to the floor.
“My feelings exactly, my queen,” I said, and followed her example.
I didn’t tell her that my ludus sisters and I planned to do exactly the same thing—for whatever that was worth. None of us had much to lose. What I did want to tell her in that moment was how sorry I was for her loss, but I bit my tongue on those words too. I would not shame her in that moment with sympathy or softness she clearly didn’t need. No. What Cleopatra needed most from me just then was strength, swords, and safe passage. And she would have them. From me and from my sisters of the Ludus Achillea. Because it wouldn’t be long before there was nothing else for us in the world but that—a mission and a purpose. And none of us wanted sympathy either.
I stood.
“Send in Sennefer, won’t you?” Cleopatra said before I left, wiping the edge of her little finger under her eye. She glared at the black smudge left on her fingertip in disgust. “And my women. I know we only have until daybreak. But I’m not going anywhere until I look like the goddess I am. The goddess Caesar loved. I’m sure there must still be one pot of eyepaint left intact, at least . . .”
I promised her we’d find some elsewhere if there wasn’t. Then I bowed and took my leave of the queen of Aegypt, my sandals crunching on a sea of broken, glittering glass as I went. The sky was clear and full of bright stars that night, and as I lay awake on the cot in my ludus cell for the last time, moonlight spilled over me. I closed my eyes and imagined that same light pouring like tears over the stone steps of the Theatrum Pompeii in Rome, unable to wash away the black stain of Julius Caesar’s blood.
XII
“THIS PLACE WAS just starting to feel like home,” Kallista said, slipping the halter off one of the draft horses and giving him a slap on the neck. She watched as he wandered away to nibble on a patch of clover growing beneath an olive tree.
“I know,” Selene, her Amazon sister, nodded, leading a pair of chariot ponies into the field. “I’ll miss the baths most of all, I think.”
“They have baths in Aegypt,” I said. “Even better ones.”
She frowned at me, clearly skeptical.
“And home isn’t where you are,” I continued. “It’s who you’re with.”
Kallista thought about that for a moment, her expression serious, then shrugged. “It’s just more adventure, I suppose,” she said, looking over at Selene. “And that is what we told Areto we wanted when she agreed to let us leave Corsica, isn’t it?”
“Exactly.” I nodded far more enthusiastically than I felt.
What I felt, really, was nothing but heartache. We’d only just rebuilt the stables. And now, here we were in the hour before we were to leave, leading the ludus draft horses and chariot ponies—and even Tempest, the mighty ox—out into the field in front of the main gate of the ludus, where we turned them loose to fend for themselves. The ponies whickered softly to each other in the purple predawn gloom. The cantankerous old donkey was the last of the animals to go. I led him a ways out into the field beyond the walls and slipped the halter off his head. Then I slapped him on the rump and turned to walk away. I didn’t get very far before I glanced back over my shoulder and saw him standing there, glaring at me reproachfully.
“Go,” I said. “Go on!”
Instead, he trotted a few steps toward me and butted my chest with his long, homely nose. I felt tears spring to my eyes. I reached up to scratch his ear, and he let me—without even trying to bite, which was a rarity—and shook his head, braying loudly, lips pulled back from his long yellow teeth. Then he turned and, tail lifted high like a gamboling foal, trotted off in the direction of the far hills without once looking back.
I watched him go.
He would be fine, I knew. They all would—caught and cared for by the nearby farms and villas—but they wouldn’t be ours. We hurried back to finish our last tasks before leaving.
“We’re taking three wagons,” Sorcha told me when I joined her in the main yard, “each harnessed to a double team of horses. And five saddled horses to act as outriders and armed escort.”
“I’ll ride,” I said. “If you want me to.”
“I do.” She nodded. “Along with Caius and Quint. Who else?”
“Hestia is a seasoned rider,” I suggested.
“Agreed.”
Acheron, passing by, stopped in front of us. “If you need another rider, I was born into a family of horse thieves,” he said.
I’d told Sorcha who Acheron’s brother was the night before. We’d agreed to keep the means of Ixion’s death a secret between us. I’d also told her how he’d come to Cai’s aid in the arena. She tilted her head and looked at him. “Were you, now?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I was stealing ponies before I was five. Long before I found myself good, honorable work as a gladiator. There’s not much that can knock me off a horse’s back, lady.”
It was decided then. Acheron would be our fifth rider.
“Ajani and Elka can each take up a defensive position in the first and third wagons,” Sorcha continued. “And Kallista and her Amazons can act as bodyguard to the queen in the middle one. They are to keep Cleopatra surrounded and safe. At any cost. Impress that upon them, Fallon. Any cost.”
I nodded, knowing full well that they’d commit to that whether I impressed it upon them or not. They were Amazons. They’d die by their own hands if they outlived their queen. And Cleopatra was their queen now.
Across the yard I saw some of Sennefer’s men escorting the ludus staff toward the lake gate. “Where are they going?” I asked Sorcha.
“The queen has insisted that the Achillea staff—cooks, body slaves, blacksmiths, house servants—everyone is to be ferried across Lake Sabatinus to the estate she was occupying in Caesar’s absence,” she said. “She’s given instructions that they be taken in hand by the estate manager and found suitable employment.”
“I’m glad of it,” I said.
Sorcha nodded. “She is a good woman. A good friend.”
But I could see her heart breaking a little as she watched them go. The staff at the Ludus Achillea—servants and slaves both—had been unfailingly honorable in their service, and when she’d brought them together to tell them what was happening, not a single voice was raised in opposition. None of them had forgotten what it was like when Pontius Aquila had taken the ludus by force. And it would soon be reduced to ashes and blackened stone walls, anyway.
