"I had no choice," Julius said. "I trusted Welch. Welch didn't trust me. I knew he'd get you put. Caesarion was the one at risk. Caesarion-was the one who could lose himself to my enemies. I trusted you. I thought-one of my sons could reach him. I didn't know that Welch would be a fool. I didn't know that he'd throw away the chance he had. You could have helped. You might have made a difference. You never got a chance."
It was a lie, of course. It aimed at a boy's self-confidence in his father's sight, at a consuming desire for love. It burned in him. It knotted up the muscles of his shoulders and made him shiver again.
"Is C-Caesarion-h-here?"
"He's in our hands. He's safe. It all worked out. Most of all I'm worried for you. It was a damned mess. I'll have Welch's guts for what he did."
A stare. A small, desperate shake of the head. "He d-d-didn't hurt me. Don't."
"Let me judge that."
"No." A second shake of the head, eyes despairing. Brutus' mouth firmed in a convulsive effort.
"I'm all r-right. He didn't d-do anything." Through chattering teeth. It was stark terror.
Of what? Of me? Of death and hell? Why-plead for Welch?
"You can get anything out of me," Julius said softly. "You know that."
A softening, then, a relaxation of the mouth the eyes, till defenses crumbled and there was only vulnerability. "You won't, then."
"I won't. Are you all right?"
"I'm all r-right...."
Julius opened his arms. It was due. He had calculated it to exactitude, what was needful with the boy, if it was Brutus, if Hell had -not deceived him. He took a chance. And the boy took his, cast himself into that absolving embrace, a chilled, taut body trembling against him till he locked his arms the tighter and felt Brutus steady.
Gods, it felt too good-to have a son, to have one son who loved him, after all eternity. He patted Brutus' shoulder, stroked his hair, turned his head to lean against Brutus' head, knowing all the while that he was holding the enemy's weapon, that even as much truth as he had told was a seed that would grow in Brutus' mind, and that. even Lethe-water could not hold back the truth forever. There was no weapon he had in this private war but love. To turn the blade barehanded-he had tried that, the day they had killed him. It had not worked then.
At the end, Brutus had died a suicide. But it was Augustus and Antonius who had driven him. It was all they had left him. They were all Julians, even Antonius, in his grandfather's blood. Augustus, Antonius, Caesarion and Brutus and himself. All Julians, all damned, and Brutus the patricide damned the most of all-whose hell was innocence.
"He's still in there," Klea said, taking a careful and worried look around the corner of the upstairs hall, and with rare familiarity Niccolo Machiavelli seized her petite pale hand in his and drew her back again to prudence.
"Caesar will handle it," Niccolo said softly. "Prego, do not hasten things. Ills very delicate."
Kleopatra gazed up at him, piquant face and short blond curls and dark eyes, dio! which could have launched armadas-Which had, in point of fact, launched two, though the little queen had led one of them herself. She was dressed in a black pleated skirt, 1930s mode; in a cream silk blouse; in black heels which did little to bring her up to Niccolo's lank height. And he, creature of habit, wore scholar's black, a doublet of fine, even elegant cut, a little accent of white here, of red at the shoulders. He had so recently come from things less elegant and less comfortable than Augustus' sprawling villa. He so dreaded a mistake or miscue that might send him out again; and he found the chance of that in the lovely Ptolemiades' distress over her own son, imprisoned below, and over Julius, who lingered tonight with young Brutus.
Julius had said-that he would speak to the boy, And Julius had also said to keep an eye on Klea, which, gratifying task that it was, made Niccolo very nervous. He had run afoul of Julius' well-known temper in matters not minor at all. And doubled as he was between Julius and Administration, Niccolo Machiavelli felt the heat indeed.
"He never should have let the boy go!" Klea cried softly. "Niccolo, I am going to see my son.
Whatever he says, I'm going to talk to him--"
Niccolo caught a pair of shapely, silk-clad shoulders and faced the pharaoh of latter Egypt toward him again ... huge eyes, dark with indignation, mouth open to protest this violence. He laid a cautioning finger on his own lips. "Prego, prego, signora, not now. Later."
"Later, when Julius-!"
"Bellissima signora." He took firm hold other shoulders and kept his voice very low. "At least, at least wait. I beg you. Do not put me in a position.
Ecco, I will help you, majesty, but be calm, do nothing rash. We are all in sympathy. Believe me."
"Believe you."
It stung, it truly did. Niccolo straightened somewhat with a little gesture at his heart and a lifting of his head. "Madonna, your servant. One who has your interests and Julius' at heart."
"One who has his precious hide at heart."
"One and the same, madonna. Come, come, let us go." Against her fury he made his voice soothing, his manner quiet and reasoning. "I cannot leave you."
"What, is it my bed next?"
"Madonna, I should perish of such a favor. In the meantime, I cannot permit, cannot-do you understand? Come. Come, let us go downstairs, let us talk among friends. Please! I assure your majesty-we are all concerned."
"Because my son is in chains in the basement!"
"An exaggeration. I assure your majesty. Please."
She spun on a neat French heel and started walking, back the way she had come, determined sway of hips and black pleats, the squared resolution of silk-clad shoulders. The vanishing perspective was enchanting, and not lost on Niccolo
Machiavelli, amid a relief in one direction, that she had not made a try at Brutus, and alarm in the other, that those stairs for which the little Ptolemy was 'headed, led equally well to Caesarion's makeshift cell in the storerooms.
He hastened, then, waved his hand at a sycophant which had picked up his distress. It wailed and trailed its substance out of his path. Damned creature.
Then: "Find Hatshepsut," he said on inspiration. "Quickly. Quickly."
The creature fled. It had a mission. It might find favor. It fairly glowed in the air as it streamed for the floor and through it, under Nicoolo's hurrying footsteps.
He was only a legionary, dodging in and out the slow movement of supply vans and trucks and jeeps, in the sodium-lit darkness of the East New Hell Armory... a great deal of grumbling of motors, slamming of doors, squealing of brakes as a third-line centurion walked up and down the rows checking off one truck and another. The convoy was headed out for the patrols that kept the hills clear, the villas and New Hell itself free of attack.
Some of the Tenth was out there, and the Twelfth ... so he had heard. He did not ask. He had not asked for this summons that involved driving his car out to a certain dirt road in the woods near the armory and transferring to the hands of legionaries who dressed him in a khaki uniform and dumped him yonder, from a troop truck, to make his way through this maze with a notebook in hand-a notebook, that badge of men entitled to go crosswise through the chaos of a moving unit, and right up the steps of the armory itself.
Down an unremarkable hall, the ordinary plasterboard and paint of 30th century architecture.
He found his door, showed a pass to the rifle-carrying guards who stood there, and walked on with one of them for escort, measured tread of boots on cheap green tiles in a nasty green hallway, but one which had real light fixtures, government issue, and the smell of recent paint in a wing which he had never, in all his .career, visited.
More doors, double, this time; windowless, painted steel, dial gave back on a dim room in which metal guttered all about the walls, bowed, rectangular shields, staffs, bannered and not, staffs that bore golden hands, and circles in various arrangements, all massed at the end of the hall, where fire burned.