“You know, you’re lucky, Philip,” Apion said over his shoulder, voice hushed. “Didymus didn’t go home again last night. Another couple hours and you would have found him asleep.”
Vorenus nodded and allowed himself a smile. His friend had often burned the midnight oil. His life was his books. Always had been.
The entry gave way to the main hall at the center of the Great Library: a six-sided room of towering walls broken only by the stairs that crawled up their surfaces and the heavy oak doors that led to the wings of the building beyond them, which were no doubt filled with scrolls and books. Between these walls and the high dome above were a line of massive windows that painted everything in a wash of warm sunlight.
The reflecting pool in the entry hall tumbled down a few steps into a circular pool in the center of this larger room, providing a steady and calming patter behind the sounds of hushed voices and footsteps as scholars and their assistants moved around the busy space. Smoothly curved benches bent around the edge of the main pool, and here and there upon it men sat in thought. Vorenus noticed that one of them, a young man who looked up as they approached, had very clearly had the worse of a recent fight. His face was badly bruised, and blood stained the tattered front of his shirt.
“Apion,” he said, his voice slurred by swollen lips and cheeks, “you need to let me see him.”
Apion’s steps faltered and then stopped. Though he’d seemed genial enough with Vorenus, there was nothing but contempt in his face as he turned on the battered younger man. “I need do nothing of the kind, Thrasyllus. You quit, remember? You quit and proved once and for all why he was right to choose me.”
“But I—”
“You quit,” Apion repeated. A smile like a sneer crossed his face. “Thought you’d make a point, and all you did was prove why he chose me. Fool, you’re lucky I even let you in the building.”
Each word was like another slap to the man’s face, but still he opened his mouth to say something more.
“No,” Apion interrupted. “Not one word, Thrasyllus. You sit or you go. Didymus will see you when—and if—he wants to do so. Not one minute before.”
Thrasyllus closed his open mouth, and Vorenus could see the mix of hatred and defiance and pained self-loathing in his eyes. Something of it reminded Vorenus of young legionnaires that he’d known who’d been subjected to the harsh correction of the lash. He pitied the young man, and when Apion began walking once more, Vorenus met his gaze. He nodded at him ever so slightly in acknowledgment of his difficulties. Thrasyllus stared back for a moment, then he nodded in return, and something like a smile creased the corner of his mouth.
Apion, seeming even more tired now, led Vorenus up two flights of stairs that angled along the walls, where they entered a short, pillared hall not unlike the entry two floors below. At its end was a single door, and Apion knocked at it quietly.
It had been so long since he’d heard the voice from within that when it spoke Vorenus broke into a grin behind Apion. “Yes?” Didymus asked.
“Someone to see you, Librarian,” Apion said to the door. “A Macedonian named Philip. He says he has a message for you.”
There was a pause of a few seconds before Didymus answered. “Very well. Send him in.”
Apion opened the door, turning back to Vorenus as he did so. The pain of the previous night of drinking was even clearer on his face. “He’ll see you now,” he said.
Vorenus gave him a nod, but before he entered the room he leaned in close to the scholar and whispered, “You don’t need to wait here. I can find my way out.”
The look on Apion’s face was one of pure gratitude. “Thank you,” he replied quietly. “I’ll be downstairs in my office if I’m needed.”
Apion turned and hurried off toward the stairs in the main hall. Vorenus did not doubt that he was hurrying to relieve himself one way or another.
When he was gone, Vorenus stepped into the office of the chief librarian and closed the door behind him.
It surprised Vorenus not at all to see that Didymus hadn’t even looked up. He was hunched over his desk, his face hidden behind the long locks of his gray hair. With his quill in hand, he was focused on reading one of the many scrolls strewn in what once might have been piles upon his desk. “Yes?” the scholar asked without moving his head. “What is this message?”
Vorenus smiled happily, taking another step forward. He’d been in exile so long that it was hard to believe he was seeing such a familiar face once more. “That an old friend misses you,” he said.
The quill scratched loudly to a halt, and the scholar’s head snapped up, the gray strands swaying in front of his eyes. He blinked as if he could not believe what he was seeing. Then he jumped up, overturning his chair behind him and scattering scraps of papyrus to the floor. “Vorenus!”
The librarian had aged considerably in their time apart. The wrinkles were carved more deeply upon his Greek skin, and his back was more hunched than it once had been, but the warmth with which he embraced his friend was unchanged. It was as if time and the war had never parted them. “By the gods, Vorenus, it’s good to see you. It’s been far too long.”
Vorenus patted his back. “So it has, my old friend.”
Didymus abruptly pulled back out of the embrace, holding Vorenus at arm’s length. Sudden fear gripped his face. “What has happened? Is everything well? Is Caesarion—?”
“He is fine,” Vorenus assured him. “All is well.”
Didymus let out a long breath. “Thank the gods. I worried, seeing you again.” He let go and stepped back, looking the Roman up and down. “And you certainly look well,” he said.
“And you.”
“Still a poor liar.” Didymus smiled.
“I’ll not compliment you on your housekeeping, then.”
Didymus laughed a little at that, then bent over to unceremoniously clear a haphazard stack of papers from a stool in front of his desk. As Vorenus sat down, the chief librarian walked around to set his own seat upright. “Well, I’m surprised to see you,” Didymus said. There was sadness behind his smile. “I confess I never thought I would do so again.”
“Like Pullo always said, I’m a hard man to keep away.”
Vorenus meant it in levity, but the mention of their old friend’s name was like the breath of a chill wind in the room. Both men fell silent at the memory.
“You know,” Didymus finally said, “I never was able to tell you how Pullo died.”
“You said he did it to save you. To protect Caesarion and the Ark. Isn’t that enough?” Truth be told, it had always been enough for Vorenus.
The librarian’s eyes were turned down toward the desk, but he wasn’t looking at it. Vorenus could see that his friend was lost in a memory he’d too long kept to himself. “He was wounded, Vorenus. Juba, the Numidian who was looking for the Ark … he surprised us. We tried, but we couldn’t stop him.”
“Pullo couldn’t stop him?” Vorenus tried to imagine something short of an angry bull stopping his big friend. Even that was hard to picture.
Didymus shook his head as he looked up for a moment. “I told you, he surprised us. And it wouldn’t have mattered. He was wearing the Aegis of Zeus.”
“Aegis?”
“Armor,” Didymus said. “The armor of Alexander the Great.”
At last Vorenus remembered. That night, that last night in Alexandria, the keepers of the Ark had summoned them all to the old Temple of Serapis. They had spoken of Alexander’s armor. What it really was. “Another Shard of Heaven.”
Didymus nodded slowly, the long gray strands of his hair rising and falling in front of darkened eyes. “Pullo was so hurt, Vorenus. But he knew. He knew what had to be done. He … he gave his life to save us all.”
Vorenus bit his lip to control his jaw. “A good man,” he managed to say. “A better man than I could ever be.”