Queen of Kings (23 page)

And then, before them, in Augustus's chamber, was a man, transparent, strange, his eyes wide and black and terrified. A wound in his stomach, the blood itself transparent.

Augustus could see through his chest and into his motionless heart.

“Tell us your name,” Chrysate said. “Tell us who you are.”

There was a long pause. The man raised his hand slowly to his mouth and removed a metal coin from his tongue. He looked at it for a moment, and then clenched his fist, holding it tightly in his palm.

“I was,” the man said at last. “I was Mark Antony.”

“And so you are again,” the priestess said. “I have opened the gates of Hades for your shade to pass through.”

T
he shade wavered, the light of the candles pouring through the place where his wound had been. He held his hand to the spot, pressing his fingers against his lost flesh. He moved his hand from the wound and held it up, gazing at it. There was blood on the fingers, but it was immaterial, like a faint residue of ink washed over with water.

He was a flickering presence in the now frigid room. Augustus had to narrow his eyes to distinguish the man, and even then, he moved in and out of clarity, as though he were a sunken ship glimpsed deep beneath rippling waters.

In spite of his state, he was certainly Mark Antony. There was no doubt. The unruly hair and trimmed beard, the cleft chin, the wide chest, the handsome, weathered face. Augustus recognized the ragged, coiled scars, evidence of battles they'd fought together.

His enemy was more man than he, even as a ghost. Augustus picked up his goblet in trembling fingers and refilled it with wine, taking care not to meet Antony's eyes.

“Is this safe?” Augustus asked Chrysate, taking care that his voice did not wobble. “You've brought my enemy into my house. I trust you know how to control him.”

“He is a shade,” Chrysate answered, smiling. “Not the man you knew. They are the perfect servants. Their will begins to slip away from them the moment they enter Hades. The river of forgetfulness beckons them, and they always surrender. Look at him. He is nothing of what he was. He cannot take up arms against you. But he may be useful.”

“What have you done?” Antony asked, the full darkness of his gaze upon the emperor. “Where is my wife?”

His voice seemed to come from far away, an aching echo propelled from the depths of the earth and into the room.

In spite of the witch's assurances, the emperor clung to his chair, his entire body desirous of flight. He wanted the sun to rise, and it did not. The only glow came from the stars outside the window, and that light was cold. The soul-drawing witch—the
psuchagoĝoi
—stood beside him, her fingers resting lightly on his shoulder. Augustus did not like the way they felt.

“Where is she?” Antony demanded. “Where is Cleopatra?”

Augustus glanced nervously at the witch, at her gleaming, bone-white skin, her phosphorescent eyes and bloodred lips and the tongue that ran hungrily over them. He mastered his voice with another deep draught of wine and theriac.

“First, you must tell us where you have been,” he informed the shadow before him. “Tell us of your time in Hades.”

The ghost stood straighter, clearly angered. He shook his shoulders, and ripples of gray light came off him.

“Is this why you have summoned me?” Antony asked. “To tell you of the Underworld? You will go there yourself one day, and knowing will not ease your mind.”

“Tell us,” Augustus insisted.

Antony laughed, a short exclamation of disgust. “Do you think you will find yourself in Elysium, soothed by the light of Elysium's stars, basking in the glow of Elysium's own lovely sun? No. You will not go to Elysium, Octavian, though you call yourself a god on earth. Only heroes go to Elysium.”

“Your emperor orders you to tell what you know,” Augustus said, his voice cracking and betraying him.

Antony smiled, only his lips moving. His eyes remained bleak.

“My emperor? You are not my emperor. I live in the land of the dead now. I'll tell you something, though, if you insist. In Hades, you starve. You perish, and you perish forever, without cease, without respite, without home. I am of Egypt. My love is of Egypt. I should not be in Hades.”

“And you are not,” Augustus retorted. “You are in Rome.”

“I should be in the Duat,” Antony said. “My body should be in Egypt, and it is not. Where is my wife? What have you done with her?”

Augustus started to speak, but the witch interrupted him.

“Your wife is why we have called you here,” she said. “She lives.”

Antony's eyes narrowed.

“If she lived, I would have felt her tears filling the river Acheron,” he said. “Cleopatra would have sacrificed on my behalf. Her sacrifices would have fed me. She is certainly dead. What have you done to her?”

“She does not live,” the witch corrected. “And she does not die. She is here.”

“Cleopatra is in Rome?” Antony asked, looking up with focused eyes for the first time.

“In Rome,” Chrysate confirmed. She glanced at Augustus and tossed her hair back. “What is wrong, Emperor of the World? Are you afraid? Protected as you are by women, snake charmers, and shades? Do you fear for your life?”

“No,” said Augustus, lying. “I fear nothing. Rome is well fortified.”

So she was here. He had felt as much.

“She is in Rome,” Antony murmured to himself. “And yet she betrayed me in Egypt. Is she here? With you?”

Augustus glanced at him impatiently. The emperor's hands were now quite numb, and his lips felt frozen.

“You will guard my home,” Augustus instructed the witch.

“I will find her,” Antony murmured. “If Cleopatra is here, I will find her.” He moved toward the window.

“You are my creature,” Chrysate told him sharply. “You'll abide with me.”

The witch opened her hand to reveal a carved stone. A
synochitis
meant to hold shades in the upper world once they had been summoned. “You are held here,” she continued, moving her hand in the air. The stone disappeared from view.

Antony looked at her for a long moment. Augustus felt nervous, seeing the look on his face. He had known Antony, known him well, and he knew him to be no one's creature.

At last, the shade bowed his head in assent.

“I am yours, then,” he said. “My lady.”

Chrysate smiled, fingering the carved box of ashes she held against her breasts.

“You are mine,” she repeated, and there was something rapturous in her tone. Something triumphant. “We are done with you, emperor of Rome. Octavian, is that your name? You may go to your bed.”

She gazed at Augustus steadily, until he was forced to look away.

The emperor left the room, swaying with unaccustomed wine and theriac. He could not say why he allowed himself to be dismissed from his own rooms by a witch. Perhaps Agrippa was right. There should be more soldiers, more Romans, not these unnatural things. Everything about this made him uneasy.

He made his way to his daughter's bedchamber and stood in the doorway for a moment, his eyes filling with strange tears. He would protect Julia from all of this, these creatures in his house, this monster in his city. She moved in her sleep, pressing her rosy cheek to her pillow. What did Julia know of the powers of an emperor? What did she know of trouble?

Augustus envied her, blearily, for a moment.

He gently closed the door and walked to the next bedchamber, that of Cleopatra's daughter, Selene. She'd been of service to him, and she might be of more. Selene was superior to his own daughter. Smarter. Perhaps Julia might learn virtue from his enemy's child.

Augustus wavered in the corridor, uncertain, intoxicated. He was tired. So tired.

He made his way to his own bedchamber and lay upon his bed without even undressing. He shut his eyes and slept. In his dreams he walked through a fig orchard, ancient and miserable, knowing that his life had come to nothing.

In his dreams, Cleopatra came for him, as she did every night. He saw her teeth and claws.

T
he Psylli crept from the Palatine and wound his way through the wealthy alley ways of Rome, considering his position. Certainly, this came at the proper time. The Psylli tribe had fought against enslavement for centuries, and they'd won, but the Roman Empire's power was on the rise.

If Usem served Rome and won against Rome's enemy, he would guarantee his tribe's independence. Still, the Psylli felt uneasy. He did not trust Augustus. The man had agreed too easily to the bargain.

What if Augustus did
not
want to destroy Cleopatra? What if he wanted to harness her power instead? Currently, the Psylli might work for whomever they chose, but if the Romans added Cleopatra's strength to their arsenal, Usem suspected that the emperor would claim the Psylli tribe as his personal poison ministers.

As Usem walked, his dagger in hand, he plotted his course. The best thing would be to find the queen before they did, and take her unaware. When she was dead, he would bring them her body and claim his reward. It did not occur to him to be afraid. The wind traveled with him, kicking up straw and clay dust, dancing into windows and out again, seeking the house that was sheltering her, and the wind was an immortal defender.

The wind whispered into his ear, telling him of the things it saw in Rome, the secrets kept behind grates and up chimneys. One house had a murdered corpse beneath the floorboards. Another had a fortune stuffed into a straw pallet.

The wind entered, finally, at a narrow window and fluttered through the rooms behind the bars. It emerged, and told Usem what it had found therein. A library, filled with all the poems of Rome and Greece. The wind had browsed the pages, flicking through the vellum and papyrus, turning inks to powder and stories to dust.

A woman,
said the wind.
Perhaps the woman you seek. She is dead.

“Does she move?” Usem asked.

Usem's snakes emerged to twine around his neck. The serpents looked impassively at the building, and then slithered back into the folds of his garments. The wind began to blow in earnest, swinging the laundry hanging on the lines, spinning the weather vanes on the rooftops, and sending the chickens balancing on the fences up into the air. Usem placed his hand on the door handle, and felt the wind pushing him away from it.

I am not strong enough to protect you,
the wind whispered.

Usem hesitated. The wind had never said such a thing before, and he took it seriously. A failed attempt would mean disaster. He would wait until he had more power at his disposal, then, even if it meant trusting in Rome a little longer. He need not fight her alone. There would be legions of soldiers, and the two other sorcerers as well, though Usem was not convinced of their intentions.

He wavered at the doorway, considering again. His dagger had slain many foes in the past. He had done the impossible and survived it, over and over again, though he wished he had his own men behind him, following his commands.

You will not kill her,
the wind insisted.
You can only die.

A thought occurred to him.

“Where are her children?” he asked the wind.

With the emperor,
she answered.

“And her husband?”

The emperor has him, too.
The scorn in the wind's voice manifested as small whirlwinds. Ghosts were creatures of breath and spirit, like the wind itself. Usem could tell that the wind wished to set the shade free.

“That is not our place,” Usem told the wind.

He thought of the legions of soldiers who marched on behalf of the emperor. If he failed here, if he
died
here, it would be all too easy for them to march upon his people.

For a moment, he wondered if it would be better to let Cleopatra destroy the Romans. With the threat of Rome removed, the world would function as it once had.

Still, the queen had been a conqueror herself. His people had lived beside hers, but Egypt had not always been an easy neighbor. Once she had Rome, she would want more of the world. Once she had
that
, she would want everything.

At least the emperor was mortal, and he had sworn to the bargain. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to barter for independence. Usem could not let it go. He turned back to the Palatine, his cloak whipped about by the wind.

You must not trust him,
the wind insisted.
He lies.

“Then I will lie, too,” he finally said as he entered the house and made his way down the corridor to his room.

The wind left him then and made its way through the residence, slipping beneath doors and through windows, listening to conversations, exploring hearts.

 

 

S
elene tiptoed into the hallway, her eyes alert, her nightdress barely rumpled. She'd been awake for some time, plagued by bad dreams. Her parents had appeared to her in a nightmare and then abandoned her to a mob of Alexandrians, all of them waiting to tear her apart.

She heard noise from down the hall, and paused. She was surely not supposed to be roaming the emperor's house. In Alexandria, a nursemaid would have followed her. In Julia's room, there were two women stationed to tend to the girl's every need. Here, no longer the daughter of a queen, Selene had strange freedom. She pressed her back against the wall, breathing shallowly, but it was too late.

At the end of the passage, a door opened, and a beautiful woman stepped out, smiling.