The Triumphant, page 20
“Damned if I know—pick one and go!” snarled the other. “Catch the bitch!”
There was a feeble bar lock with rusty brackets on the door that wouldn’t hold long if our pursuer got even halfway serious about opening it. I slammed it shut anyway, and together Kallista and I pelted through the dressing vestibule and into a dimly lit steam-filled chamber with a vaulted ceiling. Ghost-pale bodies, mostly naked, were splayed about on stone benches, and I did my best to ignore them, mumbling apologies for the intrusion, as Kallista and I made our way toward a shaft of diffuse light at the end of a corridor. We burst through an archway into a small courtyard open to the sky with a colonnade surrounding a pool filled with brackish-looking green water. Like almost everything else in Cosa, it smelled like fish sauce. A half dozen bathers floated about, as oblivious to the stench as to me and Kallista running around the perimeter of the pool, boots slipping on the algae-slick tiles.
“Here!” I stopped near the far corner, where the level of the colonnade roof was at its lowest, and sheathed my blades.
It was too high to jump to without help, so I cupped my hands to give Kallista a boost. She didn’t hesitate, just took a run, planted her foot in my hands, and vaulted onto the roof, disappearing from view. I heard angry shouting coming from inside the bathhouse and the sound of clay oil pots shattering. I glanced around, looking desperately for something I could use to climb on. There was nothing. I swallowed anxiously, knowing I was trapped . . .
“Fallon!”
I glanced up, astonished when I saw—not Kallista, but a pair of gleaming hazel eyes. Cai’s face staring down at me. Wordlessly, he thrust his hands toward me, and I grabbed hold. His arm muscles went taut, and with a jump from me and a heave of his shoulders, I was on the roof. I rolled over on the cracked and crumbling tiles, gasping for breath.
“You!” shouted a voice from below. “Haul your pasty carcass over here so I can climb on your back or I’ll cut your heart out and sink it in that swamp you call a bath!”
Cai and I exchanged a glance and scrambled to get down off the roof to the alley behind the bathhouse, where Kallista waited for us. I leaped down beside her and told her to strip off the cloak she wore. Cai followed, landing in a crouch beside me. When he stood, he turned to glare at me with equal parts frustration and relief, with maybe a little bit of anger thrown in. I realized that I hadn’t exactly had the opportunity to convey my hastily formulated plan to him. When “Cleopatra” and I had both suddenly bolted from the caravan, he must have thought the queen—or I, or both—had gone mad. And then when the actual Cleopatra had followed our lead . . .
“The queen!” I gasped. “She’s—”
“A lunatic,” Cai said. “You’re both . . .” He shook his head, sharing his glare with Kallista. “All three of you . . . utter lunatics. You know that? Mad.”
“Actually, Kallista and I are just dangerously reckless and desperate,” I said. “Cleopatra . . . ? She’s definitely mad.”
“Hsst.”
I frowned at Cai. “What?”
“What?” He frowned back.
“Did you hiss at me?”
“I don’t think so . . .”
I looked at Kallista, who shrugged.
“Hssst.”
I glanced around, blinking, and peered into the deep shadows beneath a gloomy taberna portico across the street—where the queen of Aegypt stood, draped in a drab brown woolen cloak that looked unbearably itchy, even from that distance.
She read my expression with uncanny accuracy as I ran toward her and shrugged her shoulders under the thing, saying, “It’s nowhere near as itchy as that damned carpet Sennefer smuggled me into Caesar’s chamber in. I pilfered it from a laundry line in a yard the next street over, but I left behind an earring in payment.”
I lifted an edge of the homespun fabric and saw that she still wore her azure cloak beneath—which she must have donned after I’d gone chasing after her decoy. Before she’d become her decoy’s decoy. “You packed two of the same cloak?” I asked. “I thought we were traveling light.”
“I might be a fugitive on the run,” she said, bright-eyed and flushed from dashing around the town, “but I’m still a queen, sweet girl. I never travel with only one of anything. For me, this is traveling light.”
“Majesty . . .” Cai said. “Respectfully, what in Hades are you doing here?”
“You’ve all been risking—and losing—your lives for me,” she said. “I decided enough was enough and I should lend a hand to help save my own skin. I practiced the athletic arts as a girl. And besides . . . I’m the daughter of the gods. Isis and Osiris protect me.” She said that last as if there was no shred of doubt in her mind. And I really don’t think there was.
“Sennefer?” I asked. “He must be—”
“Torn between hopping mad and nervous wreck, I’d imagine.” She grinned wickedly and shrugged. Then she looked back and forth between me and Cai and Kallista. “You should probably return me to him before he does himself any permanent damage.”
Back at the wharf, the very last of our gear was being loaded up the ramp onto the ship as the four of us came pelting out from between two warehouses, staggering on board moments before the ship’s captain gave the order to shove off. Sennefer came bounding across the deck, a blooming flush deepening his already deeply tanned face, eyes watery and hands fluttering like startled birds at the sight of his precious queen returned to him undamaged.
I grinned at Kallista and leaned on Cai, catching my breath as the ship drifted gracefully out into the middle of the harbor, sails unfurling. We were safe. At last. The sun had gained in strength throughout the day, finally burning through a layer of high, thin cloud cover as we hit the open seas and, one by one, the girls started to shed their cloaks, revealing the lean-muscled bodies—and abundant weaponry—that had been concealed beneath.
Darius, the captain, looked around, mouth agape, as it slowly dawned on him that we were not exactly Charon’s “cargo.” There was nothing about any of us that resembled slaves. Not anymore.
“I don’t know why you were so polite securing passage,” I heard him say to Charon. “With this lot? You could have just commandeered my ship without so much as a ‘by your leave.’”
“What are we but savages, Darius, without the conventions of commerce?” Charon grinned. “Of course, had you said no . . .”
“Right . . .” Darius looked at him sideways. “And where, exactly, was it you said you were bound for?”
“I didn’t.” Charon turned to Cleopatra with a deferential nod. “Your Highness?”
The queen stepped forward and pushed the deep cowl of the homespun cloak off her face. “Alexandria, Master Darius,” she said, smiling sweetly as he went pale as milk and looked as though he might collapse to the deck. “In Aegypt. My home.”
XVII
SOMETHING WAS WRONG.
I could tell by the way Charon was clutching at the rigging rope, white-knuckled, and leaning heavily on the rail. It was just over a week since we’d set out on our sea journey, and the morning had dawned bright and clear. The Mare Nostrum that day was almost without any chop, the water as smooth as any sailor could ask for. But Charon looked as if he was having a hard time standing upright. I’d never seen him without sea legs on the water, and I almost made a joke about it—about him finally succumbing to seasickness—but when I approached, I was struck by the pallor of his skin. And then I saw that his left arm was hidden beneath his cloak, and I could tell by the way the fabric draped that he had it wrapped around his torso. When I looked at the deck beneath his feet, I saw the drops of blood spattering the wood beside his boot.
“Charon . . .” I said. “Your arrow wound—”
“It’s nothing.” He glanced at me.
“I’ll get Neferet—”
“No!”
He reached out to clutch at me as I turned to go find our physician. “I don’t want anyone else to know about this,” he said.
I looked at him through narrowed eyes, wondering what exactly he was trying to hide. “That’s what you said the night it happened. I kept quiet then, but . . .”
“All right.” He shook his head. “I don’t want Sorcha to know about this.” He let go of me and winced, putting a hand to his side again.
“I’m sorry, Charon,” I said with a sigh. “I never meant to drag you into this kind of situation.”
“Oh well.” He laughed a little. “It’s my own fault, really, for kidnapping you in the first place.”
I bit my lip. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
He shook his head. “No. No . . . it’s healing.”
I glanced down at the fresh blood spatters on the deck, then back up at him.
“For the most part,” he amended. “Slowly.” He scuffed at the stains with the toe of his boot, then he raised his gaze to mine, his dark eyes serious. “Fallon . . . promise me you won’t tell Sorcha.”
“Why Sorcha specifically?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow at him.
He grinned, but it was almost bashful. “I just don’t want her to worry.”
I may have gasped a little. “You and Sorcha—”
“Are in . . . conversation,” he said and cleared his throat, shrugging. “For the last few months now, really. And often late into the night. She is a balm on my battered slave trader’s heart.”
“Ye gods.” I snorted, rolling my eyes before he could wax romantic. “And it’s all my fault.”
“It is that.” He laughed again, and this time it didn’t seem to pain him as much. “Don’t forget it was your sword—the one you helped me save from that sinking ship—that carved out this destiny for us both.” The laughter faded to a quiet smile. “Thank you.”
“Be good to her, Charon,” I said. “Something tells me she has needed you as much as you have needed her.”
He nodded. But then the smile disappeared from his face altogether, and he sighed. “I don’t deserve this,” he said. “I’m not . . . I’m not a good man, Fallon. And what I did to you—to so many people—was deplorable. Unforgivable.” A fleeting, troubled frown shadowed his brow and then was gone. “But if the truth of it were known, I would probably do most of it again, given a choice, because that is how I have lived my life and I have done well by it. So I won’t apologize, because an apology would be meaningless.”
I half unsheathed the sword he’d given me before we left the ludus. “What was this meant to be, then?” I asked.
He quirked an eyebrow at me, and his customary grin twitched back into place. “I am your patron, remember? Perhaps it was meant to be . . . an investment.”
“I’m not so sure it was a wise one, then,” I said, gesturing to the wide expanse of ocean all around us. “As I am, sadly, without an arena in which to display your generous patronage. And I doubt I’ll ever see the inside of one again.”
He shrugged. “You never know. Arenas come in all shapes and sizes. And as I said then: Your journey is not over, and you may yet find more use for your martial skills.” He sniffed and drew himself upright. “No, Fallon, that”—he gestured to the sword—“what that really is is a thank-you. You have given me the opportunity to become, if not a good man, maybe at least a better man before I die.”
He gripped my shoulder for a moment and then walked back toward the ship’s stern, proud and upright, as arrogant as ever. But maybe just a little bit humbled by experience. A little bit more human. I watched him go and then went to seek out Elka. There was something I needed to say to her that I’d been avoiding for days. Since we boarded, really.
She sat alone on the deck near the bow, with her knees drawn up and her back resting against the curve of the ship’s side. Her eyes were closed and her face tipped skyward, bathed in sunlight. The sea air lifted stray strands of her long blonde hair; she’d left it loose instead of plaited into her usual long, tight braids. For the first time, I could see what Quint had been talking about when he’d called her a “divine nymph.” Any trace of her customary fierceness, the haughty ice maiden warrior, was nowhere to be seen. She was just a girl on a ship in the middle of the sea. We all were. And some of us were missing. One of those had belonged to the same tribe as Elka.
I sank down beside her, and for a while we just sat there, not speaking. Eventually, she rolled her head toward me and opened her eyes, waiting for me to say what was on my mind.
“I’m sorry for the loss of your kinswoman,” I said. “For the loss of our sisters. For Hestia too.”
Elka snorted. “Vorya was Varini,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “She would probably laugh at your sorrow and tell you that she’s gone to drink the All-Father’s finest mead in his hall of heroes.” She shrugged. “I don’t know Hestia’s customs or where her soul will wander in death, but I have sent a prayer to the All-Father and asked him to welcome her too, should she pass that way. You should envy them, little fox, not weep for them.”
“Right.” I nodded. “And so I shall. Just as soon as I finish weeping.”
“Ja. Me too . . .”
Elka put her head on my shoulder. I put an arm around her and pretended not to notice when her tears dropped onto my tunic.
* * *
—
The journey to Alexandria would take us a little less than a month, slower than I would have liked, but then . . . I don’t know why I was in such a great hurry. We had escaped our pursuers. Still, I glanced behind us out to sea so often it became almost a habit. When we eventually put in at the port of Messana on the island of Sicilia to take on supplies of food and fresh water, I was a bundle of raw nerves the entire time. It had been decided that none of us from the ludus would go ashore while we waited for the provisions to be loaded. Even though the odds of any of Aquila’s assassins having caught up with us were long, I would not bet against them. None of us would. Cai and Quint, though, took the opportunity to go ashore and gather what news they could of Rome and the Republic in the wake of Caesar’s assassination. The news was war.
“I don’t know what they expected,” Acheron said, shaking his head.
“Not what they got,” Cai said.
He wiped the sweat from his face and sank down onto a stool beneath the striped canvas awning Darius’s sailors had rigged up midship to shade us while we were docked in Messana.
“Certainly not what they’ll get in the coming days,” Cai continued. “Which may very well be the death of the Republic and a return to the days when Rome was an empire. The very thing they so feared under Caesar. Fools. They thought they would be hailed as heroes. Now Rome is half on fire and half hiding behind doors, and the only thing keeping the Republic from tearing itself straight down the middle seems to be some kind of compromise between Marc Antony and the senate.”
“It won’t last.” Quint said, dipping a ladle into the water barrel on deck and pouring it over the back of his neck for relief from the sun’s heat, which had grown steadily ever since we’d left Cosa. “There’ll be full-blown civil war before long. It’s inevitable.”
“Weren’t they, though?” Acheron asked. “Heroes? I mean . . . Caesar was a tyrant, wasn’t he?”
Cai tilted his head and looked at his fellow ex-gladiator. “Most great leaders are, in one fashion or another,” he said. “As tyrants go, Caesar was less monstrous than some.”
“Tell that to most any Gaul,” Acheron said. “Tell it to the Romans who never wanted a king. Tell that to Fallon’s people.” He nodded at me.
“What do you know of her people?” Quint asked, seemingly genuinely curious. I admit I was too.
“Enough.” Acheron shrugged. “I had a cell at the Ludus Flaminius next to that painted fool Yoreth for long enough that some of his constant whining stuck. Didn’t you ever want Caesar dead, lass?” he asked me.
The bluntness of his assessment took me aback, but yes. Of course I’d wanted Caesar dead. For most of my life growing up, truth be told. Right up until the moment when I’d met the man face-to-face.
“You sound like one of them, Acheron,” Quint said with a thin smile. “Like a bloody Optimate.”
“Eh? Oh no.” Acheron blinked at him. “Not me. Let the big men have at it. I’ve got more important things to do with my life.” He grinned a wide grin and held his arms out, gesturing to all of us. “Thanks to you lot, I have a destiny. I’m on my way to Aegypt. Always wanted to see that great sprawling sand heap—”
His mouth snapped shut all of a sudden, and I turned to see that Cleopatra had joined us beneath the awning and had been standing there for who knows how long, listening to us discuss matters that were so very much bigger than us. Not her, though. I wondered what she was thinking.
“Your, er, your pardon, Majesty . . .” Acheron stammered an apology, still flummoxed any time the queen was within sight. “I . . . uh . . .”
She raised an eyebrow, but after a moment, she graciously inclined her head and said, “There is rather a lot of sand.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud. Less than two years earlier, I’d been the daughter of a king. Serene in the knowledge that one day, after I’d attained my rightful status as a celebrated warrior, I would have become a queen of my people. I shook my head at the very thought. The girl I’d been then probably would have become the kind of queen who would have had the Cantii at war with half a dozen other tribes inside of a month.
But a leader, I now knew, wasn’t just the hand that held a sword the best. Even in small things, beneath her glittering veneer of willful arrogance and wild abandon, Cleopatra was a statesman. A diplomat and a queen, with the temperament and training to rule her people wisely. Even in the shadow of a brawling, bullying juggernaut like Rome. Especially since she was a woman.
I understood why she and Sorcha had become such great friends.
