Queen of Kings (27 page)

She hissed, hearing it, but thought she imagined things. Her hunger was great now, and she could scarcely contain it. A group of legionaries stumbled from a bar and past her, and she thought she heard them say Antony's name. She shook her head to clear it.

In an alley near a bathhouse, she caught the scent of Antony, stronger this time. Her eyes filled with tears as she inhaled. It was as though he were beside her. If only that were true.

A legionary passed her, pasting notices of the venatio onto a fence. She paused to look at them. A drawing of a man, his body familiar, broad-chested and tall. She looked more closely. The man in the drawing had a cleft chin. He bowed before a drawing of Rome's emperor.

Cleopatra tore the notice from the wall and then followed behind the man who was posting them. How dare they mock Antony this way? It would be an actor, painted and costumed, a theatrical show exploiting the memory of her husband.

Still.

She would not stop this time. It had been a mistake. She'd had the emperor, and she could have killed him. This would all be done.

Now it would be in public. That might be better. There would be so many people there that her children would not be in any danger. No frenzy could take her and injure them, not with so many Romans present. Sekhmet craved the blood of enemies, Cleopatra convinced herself, not the blood of loved ones.

The animals Cleopatra had traveled with would fight here, to celebrate
Conquered Egypt.
She could feel them beneath her, in the cages that had been installed in the catacombs beneath Rome. They'd be prodded up into the light and given shouts and applause when they surfaced in the arena to meet their fighting partners, the
bestiarii
, gladiators doomed to fight the doomed. Lions, tigers, and crocodiles pitted against men.

She would attend.

The poster hanger paused, looking behind him nervously.

She leapt at him, her talons slashing, her teeth in his throat before he had time to make the slightest sound. If he broadcast the emperor's filthy lies about Antony, then he deserved to die.

 

 

F
rom the shadows, Antony watched his wife tear savagely into the man's throat. He'd searched every corner of the city for Cleopatra, and now he had found her. In shock, he watched her drink the workman's blood.

What the emperor said was true. Was she under a spell or sickened with some sort of poison? He did not know what she had become, but he was horrified. He turned and disappeared into the shadows of the falling sun. He could not talk to her. Not now.

C
hrysate woke suddenly and looked quickly about the room. It was empty but for the shade of Antony, who sat beside her, quiet and still. She had slept most of the day, and she still felt weak from the spells she'd cast the night before.

She felt magic around her, and not her own. The house was filled with it. She had not seen the other witches in the scry, and the old woman in particular made her uneasy. Chrysate had slept like one drugged, dreaming of threads, of being entangled in a sticky web spun by a tremendous spider. She stretched, reassuring herself that nothing had changed in the room, and then turned to look at her captive.

Antony stared beyond the ceiling, his eyes dark.

Had she not known better, she would have thought he grieved over something. This was impossible, though. No shade Chrysate had ever seen was strong enough to resist the forgetfulness of Hades for long, even if the shade was that of a previously formidable man.

“You may eat,” she instructed Antony, though he looked strangely substantial.

He passed to the table, dipping his fingers into the honey and milk all shades craved. Was her memory flawed? His skin had been ashen, and now it seemed less so. His arms had been nearly transparent, and now she could swear there was blood moving through the faded veins.

Had he left the room while she slept?

“What has changed?” she asked him.

“Nothing, my lady,” he answered.

She shook her head. The holding stone was tight in her hand, but something was not right, and her powers were not strong enough to understand what it might be. She wished the girl was ready, but that spell was not complete yet. There was no time to do what she planned for Selene, not before the venatio. Chrysate would have to suffer through the night in this condition and perhaps longer. It would not do to be interrupted.

There was enough power contained within Cleopatra to remove Hecate from her lowly position and bring her to rule over Persephone herself. There was enough power there to do anything Chrysate desired. She had only to capture her, and the change foreseen in the scry would be set in motion.

Chrysate smiled.

Sekhmet must have been foolish or desperate, to tie herself to a human, like a hawk to a chain. If the human was captured, the chain might be reeled in and the hawk seized, or so Chrysate hoped.

She did not expect it to be easy. She'd have to sacrifice more blood to keep Antony in her power. She needed him to lure his wife.

Wincing, she took a long, keenly pointed ritual knife from her garments and ran it across her wrist. Even after all these years, even across the white line of scar first put there when she was a girl, on a body long since abandoned, the necessary sacrifices remained unpleasant. Her skin felt frail and furrowed under the tip of the knife, though it appeared as smooth as silk.

She held her wrist to Antony's lips.

Antony pressed his mouth to the cut, licking the blood from it. His color improved as he drank, her blood running through him.

Oh, he was hers. There was no doubt about it.

Why, then, did she still feel that something was wrong?

T
he night before the venatio, the emperor was too frightened to leep. The thought of Cleopatra in his city caused his heart to race. He kept seeing her outside his window, outside his door, in his bed, her scaled skin slipping across his naked chest.

He tossed for hours, his eyes clenched shut, the pillow lumpy beneath his head, his cot as tight and hard as a stone-covered hillside. At last he rose. It had been months since he'd slept through the night, since his ship waited outside the Alexandrian harbor. He cursed Cleopatra and Antony. They had stolen his sleep, and now he walked, half waking, half delirious, through the halls.

Usem, patrolling outside the emperor's chambers, heard bare feet shuffling across the stones toward him.

He turned and found the emperor behind him, dressed in only a thin tunic, his eyes wild, his skin clammy.

Augustus blinked, as though looking at a bright light.

“You will live a long life, she told me,” he whispered. “Now she means to take it. She smells of lemons and fire. Her perfume is the same as it ever was, and I smell it in Rome.”

“She is not in the house,” Usem said, taking pity on the man, but the emperor shook his head frantically, as though trying to rid himself of an insect.

“Tell me a story,” he asked the Psylli. “Tell me something to make the night come.”

Usem laughed, a dry sound of curious pleasure, something that calmed the emperor vaguely. If the man still laughed, all could not be lost.

“It is night already,” the Psylli told him. “It is hours until dawn.”

“It is not night in my mind,” the emperor replied.

“I will tell you a story,” Usem said. “But there is a price.”

“There is always a price,” the emperor said wearily. “I will pay it.”

Augustus was now convinced that any fee owed to the Psylli and his tribe would never need to be paid, at least not by him. His death would no doubt occur long before he paid his debts, and Usem wanted peace. Who could promise such a thing in a world where creatures like Cleopatra existed?

The two walked back to the emperor's room, where Augustus lay down again and Usem settled into a crouch beside his cot. The Psylli began to speak, his voice low and even.

“A young man was in the desert one day, walking over the sand and dreaming of his future. He had reached the age of marriage, but the neighboring tribes would not surrender their daughters. They were afraid of his people, who consorted with poisonous serpents. When other tribes saw the Psylli coming near, they fled, leaving even their camels behind. The Psylli grew rich on abandoned possessions, but their own tribe became smaller and smaller. This boy longed for a bride, but he did not wish to take a woman against her will. He knew that he would have to walk for days to find a tribe who knew nothing of his people, but he swore to himself that he would not return to the snake people until he had found his wife.

“He walked for seven days and six nights, sleeping in caves dug amongst the serpents. On the seventh night, as dawn neared, the boy saw something spinning on the horizon, dancing and throwing light across the darkness. The boy walked closer, wondering.”

The emperor turned his head toward the Psylli and saw the man's eyes glitter.

“As the young man neared the tornado, he could see a graceful hand twisting in and out of the sand, its long fingers bedecked with sparkling rings, the source of the light he had seen.

“As he got closer still, shielding his eyes to protect them, he saw a slender form in the center of the sandstorm, her long hair twirling and whipping through the air to cover her naked body. The young man cried out in wonder, and a rapturous, startled face turned toward him for only a moment. Then she was gone, across the desert, away from him.

“The boy had caught a glimpse of the youngest daughter of the Western Wind,” the Psylli said. “She was the most beautiful woman on earth, and he was instantly determined that he would take her for his bride.”

Augustus shifted in his coverlets. The moon outside, though it was but a crescent, crept through his window, leaving a slice of brightness on the Psylli's face. He could see only the man's eyes, which were so black he could not discern their expression. The Psylli continued.

“The young man chased after the wind, but she disappeared from his view, whipping the sand into new dunes to block his passage as she fled. The sun laughed from above as the young man walked the day long, sizzling in the still air, searching for his love. At last he saw her far across the sand, but she blew away as soon as he was close enough to ask her name. This time, however, she smiled at him before she was gone, and he heard her laughter echoing over the desert. The young man kept following, sometimes seeing flowering branches from far-off places left in the sand, and sometimes watching exotic birds ride on the wind's back, high over his head. Once, she left him an empty ship dropped gently from above, with its sails billowing, but she would not speak to him, nor would she come near enough that he might touch her hand.

“At last, after twelve days and nights without sleep, without water, with nothing but his hopeless love to sustain him, the young man collapsed on the sand, exhausted, his skin parched and his tongue swollen. He closed his eyes.”

Augustus's eyes closed as well, though only for a moment. He lay back against his pillow, cursing silently, his very soul twisting inside him. Love stories. What did he care about love?

“When the young man woke, he found himself in the center of a tornado. All around him was the daughter of the Western Wind, and she lifted him into her arms and held him to her lips. She kissed him, and her kisses filled his lungs with air. She brought him to an oasis and poured water into his mouth. She wrapped herself around him and took him high into the sky.

“With her, the young man traveled from end to end of the world. He listened to her whispers and howls, her screams and laughter, and he fell more and more deeply in love with her.

“In the North, she blew up a blizzard, sending white drifts across ice floes, whistling a trilling song as she sent enormous blue ice mountains crashing across the sea. He watched a pale bear and her cubs swimming across the freezing water and then capering in the snow. The daughter of the Western Wind played with them, flinging herself in and out of the water, making waves that splashed over the ice, bringing fish to their shore, until the young man, unused to the cold, was nearly frozen to death.

“She picked him up and carried him South, to an island where the trees bent to make a leafy bower for their wedding bed. There, the daughter of the Western Wind and the son of the Psylli made love, and the young man gloried in her, watching her inhale and exhale gently, her skin smooth and warm, her long hair wrapping around him. The young man asked his bride about her family, and she told him that she did not wish to share him. It was her nature to travel over sea and land, and she could not be still for long. If she stayed in his arms, the oceans would go still, and the bees would cease drinking from the flowers. If she stayed in his arms, the storms would stop filling the rivers, and the snow would stay in the sky. She told him that she would have to leave him soon, or risk the wrath of her father.”

Augustus had fallen into sleep at last, his dreams dark and twisting, as ever they were, his hands clenching invisible weapons and his mouth forming inaudible words. Around him, the world exploded and showered down upon itself, shining and searing. Inside him, the world ended, again and again.

“The young man did not wish to let his wife leave his side. He tied himself to her body as she slept, and he was thus entwined with her when her father appeared, a roaring rush of fury, tearing the palm trees from the sand, and sending tremendous waves crashing over the shore. Those who lived on the island ran out from their homes and over the beach, but the Western Wind was merciless. He lifted his daughter up from where she lay sleeping and soared into the sky with her. As he flew, waves shook themselves up from the oceans and broke over the land, destroying everything in their paths. Entire forests were uprooted and flew into the clouds, landing in the heavens, where eventually they settled and became shelter for the stars. The young man clung to his bride as she warred against her father, screaming at him and beating him with her fists. Three mountain ranges turned to plains. Seven rivers turned to rain. A shooting star found itself blown off course and into the fingers of a child, where it became a shining plaything.