Queen of Kings (28 page)

“At last, the father landed on the sands of Libya, where the young man's tribe was camped. He swept their camels into the air, and threw their tents from end to end of the desert. He strew their possessions across the mountains and tossed their serpents into the sky. Later, they would rain down, poisonous, mysterious, and full of rage, onto the heads of a neighboring tribe.

“The Western Wind turned his wrath onto the wells of the Psylli, and directed his hot breath into them until they were dry. The young man's tribe was left without water, and they spoke angrily to their wayward son. He knew he'd hurt his people by falling in love with the Western Wind's daughter, but this did not stop him from loving her.”

A soft breeze began to blow into the emperor's windows, rattling the shutters and easing them open.

“The young man refused to give up his bride. Her father snatched her from his arms and took her back to his home at the edge of the world. The young man spoke with his tribe and convinced them to go to war. Though they were angry with him for inciting the rage of the Western Wind, they were angrier still at the wind, for drying their wells and for stealing a rightful bride from one of their own.”

Augustus thrashed in his sleep as the breeze passed over his bed, tearing his coverlet from his body and chilling him to the bones. Usem looked up and smiled as the breeze passed over his face.

“The Western Wind had stolen not only a bride but a baby, for the daughter of the Western Wind was with child. The tribe of the snake people armed themselves and rode out across the desert, with their serpents beside them. They rode day and night and never saw the Western Wind's daughter. The Western Wind himself tormented them with sandstorms, pushing waves of dust up over the desert so that they engulfed the warring tribe, their mounts, and their serpents. Convinced that he had buried them so deeply they would never recover, the Western Wind went off to his other business at the far side of the world. The warriors and their serpents dug themselves up out of the sand and rode on until they reached the world's edge.”

The window was opened entirely to the elements now, and the wind blew in, tossing the curtains, ruffling the scrolls. It blew into the emperor's mouth, and out again. It perched on the Psylli's shoulder.

“They stood looking out across the nothing that awaited them there, and far in the distance, balancing on a platform of the thinnest air, they could see the lighted castle of the Western Wind. In the doorway of the castle, the young man could just see his bride, her hair twirling around her, her eyes flashing lightning. She was tied to the castle wall. The young man despaired of reaching her. He did not know how to walk on air, and the distance was too far for him to leap. His bride's voice, however, was light enough to travel across the distance between them, and she whispered into his ear that she loved him.

“The young man thought hard for a moment, and then he called to his serpents. They twined themselves together, tail to throat and throat to tail. Soon, the young man and his tribe had a coiled rope of snakes as long as the distance from the edge of the world to the castle of the Western Wind. The young man threw the rope across the divide, and his bride pursed her lips and gave the rope a breeze to carry it the last few lengths across the gap and to the castle doorway. The young man did not hesitate. He stepped instantly onto the serpent's backs, and ran across the tightrope to his beloved.

“Thus it was that the tribe of the Psylli traveled across thinnest air and arrived at the castle of the Western Wind. Thus it was that the tribe of the Psylli waited for the Western Wind and captured him with their ropes and their magic, slicing at him with their swords until the wind surrendered and gave over his daughter.”

The Psylli stood, his body shining dark and lean in the moonlight. He looked down at the emperor's form. The man's eyelids fluttered, and Usem knew he was only pretending to sleep. The Psylli placed his hand on Augustus's chest.

“Thus it was, by going to war against the Western Wind, that I won my wife. We became parents and I came here, to Rome, to protect my family from war and trouble, from pain and sorrow, as any father should protect his children.”

The Psylli looked at the emperor, and his jaw clenched slightly.

“Any father,” he repeated. “Any ruler of any tribe, any ruler of any country. That is the responsibility of a leader. But a leader should understand that the loss of love can be more dangerous than the loss of a kingdom. He should understand that he risks himself when he tangles his city in such a thing. A broken heart can destroy as surely as a knife, and there are broken hearts in Rome. There are stolen lives in Rome. It would be no shame to give her children back to her. My wife believes that it would calm Cleopatra, and a calm enemy is easier to best. It would be no shame to relinquish the ghost you hold captive. She wants peace for him and for herself. She wants it more than vengeance, at least for the moment.”

The emperor stopped breathing for a moment, feeling the Psylli's gaze upon him. He said nothing. Then the man removed his hand from the emperor's chest and turned away.

The breeze became a woman, her hair twirling, her hands outstretched to touch the snake charmer's. Together, the wind and the Psylli left the room.

In the dark, Augustus's eyes opened. His heart felt broken and furious at once. Love. Who was this man to talk to him about love? Who was this man to say Augustus did not understand it?

Cleopatra had not been broken by love. She had been broken by her hunger for power, and by her desire to be the queen of more than her own country. Augustus knew it, just as he knew that he himself had the same hunger. He ruled, just as she had. He'd climbed up over obstacles of kin, of friends and warriors, just as she had, and now, here in the Palatine, he stood at the top of the world. She was far below him. He had only to kill her now.

The emperor stepped out of bed, weary to his bones.

He had never loved anyone but Rome, and Rome needed him.

T
he witches met in the corridor outside the emperor's chambers, Auðr's silver eyes glittering dangerously at Chrysate, who feigned disinterest. Usem, Chrysate noticed, was armed. His dagger had recently been sharpened, and it was a strange metal, something she had not seen before. She smiled at him. He was a man. Her spells would surely work on him. Never mind the Northerner.

Usem glanced at Auðr. Since he'd seen her in the hallway outside the emperor's bedchamber, he'd wondered what her goals were. She did not look well, but something about her radiated force.

We will capture her,
she said, looking at Usem, and he heard her voice in his own language.
Do not let the other know. We are strong enough to do it together. She must be destroyed. We are here for the same reasons.

Usem looked away. What sort of thing was this voice in his head? He did not care for it. Magic and mind control. He wanted to get to the Circus Maximus with his dagger. The emperor refused to surrender the children, and the longer they waited, the angrier Cleopatra would be.

Usem was the first through the door when it opened.

Augustus awaited them, already dressed in ceremonial garb, his gilded laurel crown gleaming on his head. Agrippa stood beside him, rigid with discomfort.

“You will be positioned around the emperor,” Agrippa said. “Each of you will defend him from his enemy.”

“From Cleopatra,” said Augustus.

“From Cleopatra. My men will be positioned all around you. The circus will be filled with them. There will be no danger. She is one woman.”

Agrippa turned his gaze to Chrysate.

“You will bring the illusion,” he said.

“He is no illusion,” Chrysate replied. “He is the queen's husband.”

“You will use Antony to attract Cleopatra to us,” said Augustus, and smiled, though his lips wobbled. He did not wish to let them see his nervousness. It would be done soon.

“And how do you propose to destroy her once she is captured?” Usem asked.

“That is not for you to know,” Agrippa said, and Augustus shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Some things are better kept secret.”

A
bove the arena a pale moth fluttered, tempted by the torchlight. The moth twisted, stretching its antennae, batting itself about on currents of wind, floating suspended and desiring over the chaos of the crowd.

Hundreds of thousands of people were gathered there, chanting and shouting, and the heat of their bodies called up to the insect. Outside the walls of the arena, more people pummeled each other, pushing themselves up onto the hills in order to look down into the circus and see the animals and fighters.

Below the moth, each torch looked like a glorious lake of fire.

It swept itself closer, hovering over the starry earth.

 

 

T
he passages below the city were dark, despite the torchlight. Holding her breath to avoid inhaling the too tempting smell of blood, Cleopatra pressed herself against the clammy wall of a slender passage. She could feel every stone through the thin tunic she'd worn, imagining herself more easily concealed if she appeared to be one of the animal tenders.

Still, she received some suspicious looks. There were few women below the ground, and the queen had an unearthly glow about her skin.

“What
are
you, lady?” a manure sweep stammered, and fell to his knees in worship as she passed him.

She broke his neck for the question and threw his body into a bundle of straw. She could not afford screams.

The bestiarii occupied special quarters, and the queen smiled as she passed them. The gladiators caged there were chained until needed. Some of them would be permitted to kill the beasts they fought, provided with weapons or with hobbled opponents, and others would be sent naked before Rome to be executed by beasts. Something in their looming mortality pleased the dark parts of her heart. The parts that were not her own.

She heard the bears, smelled their ripe odor. The crocodiles were familiar, caged in a muddy pool to keep them wet. The quarters for the wild cats smelled of goat meat.

In Egypt, to kill a lion or a cat of any kind without the proper ceremonies would be death to the murderer. Here, things were done differently. In Rome, the animals were not gods.

Or maybe it was simply that the Romans did not know that they were.

In the air before the queen, a pale feather floated downward, caught in an unknown current.

The feather of Maat
, she thought convulsively, though the better part of her mind knew that it was nothing more divine than a goose feather. Cleopatra could hardly ask for assistance from Maat. The Goddess of the Weighing of the Heart, of Truth, and of Justice kept chaos—
isfet
—from reigning. If the heart that had once belonged to Cleopatra were weighed now, she knew it would fail the test. Sekhmet was Maat's opposite, desiring a world of blood and violence. The scales would drop, and her heart, leaden, would be given to the Eater of Souls, who crouched beneath the scales, lion-haunched, crocodile-jawed, fangs shining. Still, Cleopatra whispered a word of blessing to Maat, for whatever little good it might do her.

There was too much death in her memory. Caesarion, leaping from the platform, his neck breaking in the hand of the emperor's man. She remembered each moment of her son's murder, just as she remembered Antony's death.

She hungered for the heart of the emperor of Rome. She imagined him pleading for his life. She would not grant him, nor any of the others who had fought with him in Alexandria, mercy. They would each be consumed. She was the Eater of Souls here, she realized.

She was the decider of fates.

Cleopatra hurried into the area of the lions, sighting familiar cats from the voyage. She leaned against the lion's cage for a moment, enjoying the darkness and the sounds of eating and grooming. Her presence calmed the cats. Aboard the ship, she'd slept as an animal beside them, feeling part of a family as she never had in her childhood. She'd never been able to reach out her fingers in her sleep and touch another person, not until Antony and her children.

Cleopatra stayed a moment, thinking about her lost life, and then shook the sad thoughts away. She slipped through the bars.

O
utside the arena, Nicolaus sprinted through the arcade, his robe catching on the splintery stalls as the vendors packed up their items and began to depart. Somehow, he'd found himself opening the door of Virgil's house and running through the streets, thinking, perhaps delusionally, that he would convince Cleopatra not to do what she planned.

He knew better than to trust her. He'd searched the city for her to no avail the moment he realized she was gone, and when he saw the posters announcing the venatio, he knew where he would find her.

Help me,
she'd said, and he'd felt so guilty there in the hold of the ship, his hand on her empty heart, that he had helped her into Rome, telling himself that if he found her children, she would be satisfied. Telling himself that she was only a woman, a mother, that she could be talked out of vengeance.

He was a fool. Sekhmet controlled her.

His quest through Virgil's library had unearthed little of use, though he'd read for hours about immortal battles, about immortal monsters. Eternal life might sometimes be relinquished, but this was a dispensation given only by the gods. There were no stories of mortals working such spells. Immortals might kill other immortals in certain circumstances, but that was not helpful either.

Nicolaus was helpless, and he knew the queen suspected as much. He'd thought, in the ship, that she desired separation from the goddess, but now he wondered if she had simply used him to smuggle herself easily into Rome.