“Yes! Our Tiberius plowed him! Fucked him right up!”
“You need a cognomen, you know. Fancy Agricola?”
The word for farmer rang through the air, and Tiberius raised his head slowly. Stared at the man speaking. “Exanimis,” he said, his voice a dull croak. Without life. “Funestus.” Defiled by death. “Damnatus.” Damned.
“Ah, shush. No one wants to hear ill-omened shit like that. Mark my words. Tiberius Claudius Nero Agricola it will be.” The speaker, a man in his late twenties, helped the younger tribune to his feet.
No. It’ll be Tiberius Claudius Nero Damnatus. What else do you call a man who died, was buried, and whom not even the gods want when he freely offers his life?
Wandering thoughts, however, had to be set aside, as he was now the ranking officer. On his feet now, it fell to him to deal with the frightened farmer and his family. To ask them for water to soothe parched throats. And then he sent someone off to try to collect the terrified horses. Sent another off as a courier, ahead of everyone else. Put the two remaining more-or-less able-bodied men to the task of helping the severely injured man whom they’d dug up from under the sand, and finding the bodies of the dead, while allowing the other man who’d been bitten by the cobra to rest in the shade. Nothing more they could do for him, or so it seemed. Tiberius moved to his side, offering him the amulet of Sekhmet that still burned cold around his neck, but the other man refused. “No. The snake took me second. Shouldn’t have had as much venom left after the first bite.” Still, his face dripped with sweat, where they’d lain him down with his feet propped up. “Just get me moving, trib. I need a medicus to look at this. Frown. And pour some damned tea down my throat and mutter prayers in the general direction of Asclepius.”
Of a patrol of twenty, fourteen men had died. The man who’d been blinded had perished in the sandstorm. One man, when dug up, had hundreds of swollen bites and stings over his body, and Tiberius shuddered at the recollection of the beetles and scorpions. That could have as easily been me. Or any of the rest of us.
They built sledges for the bodies of the fallen, and a separate, smaller sledge for their injured comrades. Hitched them, roughly, to the recovered horses. And then, very slowly, they rode back north, towards Alexandria.
Tiberius wondered, as he rode, the reins in his left hand, and still looking like a creature made of the earth itself, if he’d ever know peace or respite again. Agricola. Damnatus. The two words spun in his head in tandem, like the beat of a drum.
______________
In Alexandria the night before, Eurydice had been watching through the eyes of her hawks, while still conversing with Damkina Banit, their new Magus acquaintance, with Caesarion, Malleolus, Antyllus, Selene, and Antony in the room. Plenty of people to keep an eye on the Magus for her, while her own were otherwise occupied. She’d frowned after a moment or two, and then held a hand up apologetically to check Damkina’s words as she turned towards her husband. “Caesarion?” she said, blind to the room around her, but knowing that he was nearby, at the sand table with Antony and Antyllus, looking over a model of Thebes. “Why is Tiberius with this band of equites riding out of the city? He was wounded three hours ago. Shouldn’t he be resting?”
She’d been able to hear the frown in Caesarion’s voice. “I healed the bones in his arm, but I considered him stood down for the day, yes. He did us good service, holding that demon at bay. And you say he’s riding out in search of that group that slipped the perimeter? The one we think might be the priests we’re looking for?”
“A hawk’s eyes do not lie,” Eurydice replied crisply. “He’s distinctive, armor or no, and I took a low pass in front of the column of horsemen. It’s him.”
“Who the fuck put him up to this?” Caesarion said, the barracks oath slipping out unchecked.
“I did,” Antony returned evenly, and Eurydice wished she could release the hawk to look around her, without having to grope for the mind again. But at such a distance, her grip on the bird’s mind was tenuous enough without adding to the difficulty. “I thought keeping him occupied would be the best thing for him, honestly. Work’s a damned fine tonic. Would have done me better, years ago, than all the wine I wound up drinking instead.”
Uncomfortable shifting of feet, scraping against the smooth tiles of the floor. “Besides,” Antony went on, his shrug practically audible in his voice, “he’s helping to chase down a clout of priests. Our empress already met Tahut and outstripped him in power inside of a year. If twenty men can’t handle that, they don’t deserve to be called legionnaires.”
Damkina cleared her throat during Antony’s oration, and then chuckled uneasily. “Ah. You haven’t often fought the mage-priests of Thebes, then.”
Eurydice’s head turned towards Damkina, and she frowned. “What do you mean? I honestly didn’t find much noteworthy about Tahut-Nefer. Even the spells in his Book of Thoth seemed . . . rudimentary. Things learned by rote.”
Damkina sighed. “Yes. They do tend towards a very . . . basic understanding of the world around us. One locked in the past. Fortunately for those of us who serve the Magi, anyway. Individually, a mage-priest isn’t much of a foe. However, they’re incredibly dangerous when found in larger numbers. Even I would hesitate to fight a group of them without other Magi for assistance.”
Antyllus, his voice moving closer as he spoke, said sharply, “What do you mean? What makes groups of them so dangerous?”
“Because they have a gift that we Magi do not,” Damkina replied simply. “Those very simple spells, the ones that aren’t very effective when cast by a single person? Become extraordinarily dangerous when cast by a large group of mage-priests. They don’t just add to one another’s power. It . . . concatenates. For example, if one mage-priest can usually cast a spell that throws a rock ten feet, he and a friend working together don’t just double it. It’s not two rocks, thrown ten feet. It’s two rocks thrown twenty, with twice the force. Four mage-priests? That’s four rocks, all thrown forty feet, with four times the force.”
Eurydice bolted to her feet, suddenly shaking and sick to her stomach. A vision of her own firefan spell, learned from Tahut-Nefer’s Book of Thoth, flared across her vision. A fan of flame, ten to fifteen feet long. What would it look like with six men all casting it at once? “But Tahut said that they couldn’t cast outside forty pesi with any accuracy—“
“How much accuracy,” Damkina asked softly, “do you need when you start a whirlwind, centered forty feet from you, and then a friend joins in, and then another, and then another? The winds will spread their effect on their own. Shear into each other. Churn the area around them—“
“That’s how they did it!” Caesarion said, his voice tight. “That’s how they took out Prefect Gallus’ century, the one he sent to Thebes to investigate the missing tax collectors. That’s why there are reports from the survivors of men being buried alive.” He moved across the room, sound of rapid steps on the floor, and he caught Eurydice’s arm in his hand. “Can you tell them to stop?”
Sick at heart, Eurydice shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “I’m looping the hawk back and forth in front of them, but they just keep following the trail. Gods, for a way to talk to them at a distance—“
“You don’t have spirits tied to any of them, whose Names you know?” Damkina asked, sounding surprised.
“Most Romans don’t have more than house-spirits,” Caesarion told her curtly.
“And none of mine know the smell of your men’s blood,” Damkina returned, her voice regretful. “I can’t help you in this.”
“Gods damn it,” Antyllus swore, pacing back and forth, his feet rasping on the tile. “I should be there with them—“
“What, and get yourself killed, too?” Antony snapped at his son. “Think! What’s one more man going to do in this situation?”
“Shoot the fucking priests in the eye from farther away than they can cast any spells,” Antyllus returned, just as sharply, and Eurydice heard Selene inh
ale in shock at her betrothed’s choice of words. Yes, sister, there’s more to him than the kind and gentle man who courted you. He’s just as much a legionnaire as all the rest.
“Send a century after them,” Caesarion ordered Antony. “Even if all they do is arrive in time to pick up the pieces and bandage the survivors, it’s the least we can do.”
“I volunteer—” Antyllus began.
“No,” Caesarion said curtly. “You, too, have done enough. You’re still wounded, since I can’t heal more than one person a day. And you just became betrothed a few hours ago. You can sit still for a day or two. And that is an order, since apparently I need to make these things explicitly clear.”
With sunset, the equites rode on. Out of Eurydice’s range. She’d thought that she’d have trouble sleeping, but instead, her body betrayed her, and she fell asleep almost as soon as they left the range of her eyes, awakening near dawn, groggy and only partially refreshed. As soon as she stirred, Caesarion rolled over in the bed next to her, and pulled her close. “The child makes you sleepy,” he muttered against her hair.
“Sleepy and sick,” she mumbled. “Though Nesa tells me the first months are the worst. The next three months, she informs me, are quite enjoyable.”
“Mmm.” Caesarion apparently woke up a little further then. “What’s that?”
“She says I can expect to feel considerable ardor,” Eurydice informed him, rubbing his forearm, snugged tight to her ribs at the moment. “Of course, with you in Britannia, that will be a complete waste.”
Caesarion groaned and kissed the side of her neck. “Wonderful. I would take you with me, love, but . . . if you can’t use your magic, then you’re a great potential prize for the enemy.”
“I’ve been thinking about that—“
“Of course you have.” Caesarion sat up and squinted at their windows, which overlooked the port below. Cool sea breezes wafted in through these openings, left unshuttered against the night air. Even at this hour, lights were moving across the blackened waters of the pre-dawn sea. “I thought I ordered the harbor closed.”
“Local fishermen, as the people of the city need to keep eating. Mother requested an exemption, so long as they stay within sight of the Lighthouse. Any of them try to slip away, and there’s a quinquereme ready to take off after them and sink them. No quarter given. Signals are all set up.” Eurydice sat up with him now. “About what I was thinking—“
Caesarion lay back among their sheets. “I take back everything I said about the boredom of our trip here. I suddenly long for the chance to sleep in and not think about any of this.” He rubbed her arm. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”
Eurydice swallowed. “Remember outside the baths a few years ago, when I touched your mind for the first time?”
He went still. “Gods, yes.”
“I remember wondering what we could do if we joined our powers.” She slipped down and pillowed her head on his chest. “If the problem is draining too much power from the mother’s body, and that’s what puts the child at risk, what happens if I take the power from you, instead?”
His fingers found the base of her neck, and stroked against her scalp for a moment or two as he thought about it. “I don’t know,” Caesarion told her at last. “I don’t think I want to experiment with it at the moment. It seems risky, and we do have other options.”
She nodded against him. “Just something to consider. Mother does keep mentioning the royal magics. Which we need to do at Thebes anyway. I expect it might have something to do with, well, exactly this.”
“You touch my mind every time we join our bodies. I can feel the power coursing between us.” Caesarion’s voice had become almost inaudible. “I’m fairly sure that we’re doing what we need to be doing, every time we do that.” He rolled to his side, dumping her gently on her back. “Speaking of which? Would you like to ensure the fertility of the land and the fecundity of the Nile some more?”
She laughed, but a little guiltily. “I’m a little worried about that patrol,” Eurydice admitted.
“So am I. But we can’t do much for them from here. The century we sent after them will either arrive in time. Or it won’t.” He kissed her, gently, and then more ruthlessly as they both woke up more thoroughly.
But before they’d even finished, there came a tap at the door, as servants tried to wake them to start their day. “Not yet!” Caesarion snapped.
“My lord, my lady, you have meetings scheduled over breakfast—“
“Five damned minutes, and if you open that door, you’ll be dismissed!” Caesarion put his forehead against Eurydice’s shoulder, as she couldn’t help but chuckle under her breath, and then got back to what they’d been doing. It was better to laugh, than to weep, as she’d been doing too often lately. Because every embrace felt like a long, silent farewell at the moment.
Then, yes, breakfast. Meetings with the commander of the Sixteenth, Balbus, about the lockdown of the city. Meetings with at least three irate merchant princes, whose cargos were starting to rot in their ships. “Once we determine that all the perpetrators have been caught, then yes, I will open the harbor,” Caesarion said sharply, and Eurydice touched his elbow lightly with her fingers. He glanced back at her, caught her silent message, and went on more temperately, “This is a security decision for the protection of my wife, but it remains a short-term one.”
“I expect that normal trade will resume within a day,” Eurydice put in calmly. “Two, at most, though that could change.”
And when the merchants left, Caesarion caught her hand lightly. “I need to let you do more of the talking, don’t I, if they’re to see you as queen in your own right, and not just an adjunct to me.”
Eurydice smiled faintly. “The pharaoh rules. The queen rules through him, unless she’s a pharaoh in her own right. I don’t really plan to wear a false beard in public, so I think we’re fine.”
More meetings. More reports. Agitated ambassadors who couldn’t receive messages from their countries. “And, as official spies, can’t send reports to their countries, either,” Caesarion muttered under his breath.
Finally, around noon, Selene slipped in to remind them, quietly, that lunch was ready, and that the cooks were likely about to waste food by cooking another version of the same meal, to be able to present it at optimum freshness. Eurydice and Caesarion joined their sister for the meal—which was presented in Hellene, style, reclining, in the formal dining area. Duck braised with figs and coriander, fresh pomegranates, and unleavened bread. Caesarion insisted on eating first, though Eurydice reminded him that her spirits would likely recognize most poisons. Except perhaps random herbs like catmint and silphium, which threaten the baby, and not me, she thought grimly, and then concentrated simply on keeping her food down where it belonged. While the duck smelled amazing, she kept to bread and fruit for the moment.
And noticing how downcast Selene seemed, for a newly-betrothed woman, Eurydice attributed it to Antyllus’ absence from the meal, and addressed their sister bracingly, “You know, Selene, you’re quite fortunate. Whenever you return to Rome with Antyllus, why, even if he decides not to move out of the Antonii villa, you’ll largely be the woman of the house! Mother will be staying here indefinitely . . . though Antony told me two days ago, with what I considered surprising tact and thoughtfulness from him, that he planned to build his own house here in Alexandria. A true governor’s residence, separate from the military enclave where Prefect Gallus has been living.” She nodded. “You won’t be under Mother’s thumb, regardless of where you and Antyllus wind up living.” With no response from Selene but a nod, Eurydice continued on, forthrightly, “And while I wouldn’t trade in Caesarion for any man in the world, I envy you one thing, Selene—the freedom you and Antyllus will have to travel. Why, coming here, Caesarion and I had to call up most of a flotilla. To see the Alps last year? Half a legion went with us. You and Antyllus just need a light guard, and off you go to Antioch or Palmyra or wherever you choose.”
/> “You won’t even have a Praetorian escort anymore,” Caesarion said, picking up on the cues. “I’m sure that will make you happy.”
Selene nodded at the appropriate junctures, until Eurydice sighed internally and gave up.
______________
Selene looked up from the lists and lists of things her mother’s servants had sent her, regarding her wedding. She’d shuddered over half of them. No, I will not wear a bridal kalasiris, with my breasts exposed. Eurydice had to, to make the Egyptians happy. I don’t have to make anyone happy. Except Antyllus. It was a novel thought. And I’m fairly sure he just wants a normal Roman ceremony, or as normal as we can get here, given that I can’t carry a torch from my family’s hearth all the way to his. I’m quite sure it would burn out before we got across the ocean.
But at the moment, two hours postmeridian, there was a commotion at the palace gates, and any distraction from the conundrum of how to tell her mother no, without needing Eurydice to do it for her, was welcome. Selene let the papyrus scrolls fall from her hands and slipped out of her room to see what was going on.
Foot soldiers filed through one of the gates into the palace complex, ahead of four men on horseback, all of them unrecognizable. The equites’ armor appeared pitted and scored, nearly matte from the damage they’d taken. Any inlay or decoration each of them had previously had, had been utterly destroyed by wind and sand. Their brave red cloaks were tattered, and had turned a faded brown in color, saturated by dust. Any crests their helmets had once had, were no more; torn away at some point in the past day. Their arms, legs, and faces were swathed in blood-dotted bandages. And wherever they weren’t bandaged, sand appeared to be embedded in their skin, so thick was the dirt on them. They all slumped in their saddles, virtually indistinguishable from one another.
Behind them, escorted by the infantry, came a cart with six bodies on it, barely covered by a tarp. Flies buzzed over them, and hands and feet stuck out here and there, bouncing limply as the wheels of the cart found the pavement of the courtyard less than even.
Children of Tiber and Nile (The Rise of Caesarion's Rome Book 2) Page 30
