The officers stepped aside as the odd pair made their way into the steady lamplight of the command tent. More than a few men who had been on their way out returned to their positions to learn about this new development.
Caesar stood, and Juba and the other men at the table followed his lead. The men at the end of the table opposite Octavian—including Tiberius, who appeared to be of an even darker spirit than usual—moved away in order to clear a space for the visitors to stand. Carisius, Juba noted, had deftly flipped the map in the commotion.
The legionnaires who’d accompanied them departed as the man and girl took their position at the end of the table, but the two praetorians did not: they stood directly behind the visitors, swords at the ready. It turned Juba’s stomach to see that one of the two blades was prepared to cut through the back of the little girl’s neck.
“Caesar of Rome,” the lame girl said, balancing off of her crutch to bow slightly, “Lord Corocotta has learned of the reward you have offered for his capture.” She made a sweep of her hand toward the big man beside her. “He has come to collect it.”
The bearded man gave only the slightest of nods.
Juba at last managed to pull his attention away from the Cantabri and look to his stepbrother. He found him smiling. “You are Corocotta?”
The big man’s chin moved up and down once.
“And you have come to collect the reward?”
Corocotta stared for a moment, unblinking, then turned to look down at the little girl at his side. Still leaning heavily on her crutch, she spoke up to him in the guttural language of their people. Theirs was a strange tongue, Juba thought, before reminding himself that they no doubt felt the same about the Latin otherwise spoken in the tent.
Corocotta smiled at something she said, then turned to stare once more at Augustus Caesar. His smile in his dark beard was broad and white. “Yes,” he said, the foreign word forming oddly on his lips, then he said something else they could not understand.
“One million Sesterces,” the girl translated. “Lord Corocotta was told it was one million Sesterces.”
Octavian looked past them to one of the praetorians. “How many did they come with?”
It was the one whose sword was aimed at the little girl’s spine who answered. “It was only these two, Caesar. They announced themselves at the gate.”
“I see,” Octavian said.
Juba happened to be looking at his stepbrother, and so when Octavian’s gaze quickly passed around the room, their eyes met. Rather than passing by quickly, however, Octavian’s gaze locked on his own for several seconds, his eyes widening and imploring. Juba knew him long enough to know that his stepbrother was trying to tell him something. But what?
Caesar’s attention once more turned to the Cantabri leader who’d killed so many of his men and destroyed so many of his supplies. “If I give the order,” he said, addressing Corocotta directly even as the little girl translated, “those men will kill you.”
Corocotta slowly turned his head to take in the praetorians at their backs. Then he smiled once more and his big shoulders shrugged as he looked back to Caesar to answer. At his side the girl translated again, “If you give the order, they will try.”
“You have killed many Romans,” Octavian said.
“And you have killed many Cantabri.”
Juba was listening to the conversation, but he was also intently studying Corocotta. Octavian wanted him to see something. He was sure of it.
“You are either a very brave man or a very foolish one,” Octavian said.
“And you the same,” Corocotta replied through the girl.
A few of the Romans gasped, and Juba quickly glanced back at his stepbrother, expecting to find him angry. Instead, Octavian was smiling, and he seemed to be looking at the bigger man with a new respect. “We have a saying in Rome, that the victor is brave, the defeated a fool.”
Corocotta nodded as he spoke and the girl continued to translate, “The same is spoken in Cantabria.”
“As in all lands, I suspect,” Octavian said. He paused, and the two leaders stared at one another for several seconds. “I will attack Vellica tomorrow.”
“Sir,” Carisius said, “I don’t think—”
The Cantabri’s barbaric tongue cut him off. “Corocotta had suspected you would do so,” the little girl translated. “Your supply lines are weak and exposed. You cannot delay. And your offer for his capture shows your desperation.” She blushed a little at what she had just said, and then gave a kind of apologetic bow, her hands still gripped firmly on the crutch for support. “Begging your pardon, my lord.”
Octavian brushed her comment away with his hand. The little girl was some kind of prisoner or slave of the Cantabrian leader, and Juba knew that his stepbrother—like most Romans—would view her as little more than a necessary nuisance. Whoever she was, she was only useful for her ability to speak both Latin and the Cantabrian tongue. Her opinions mattered nothing at all.
It was the same attitude about the relative value of human life that Octavian had shown in ordering Juba to use the Trident of Poseidon to kill Quintus, the loyal slave who had helped to raise Juba.
The Trident. The Shard to control water.
With a start, Juba realized what it was that Octavian was trying to communicate. If Corocotta indeed had a Shard to control fire, he would have it with him. It would be here in this room. And wherever his stepbrother kept the Trident with which Juba could fight that power, it wasn’t here. If Corocotta had the Shard and used it, he might be able to kill them all.
“You are right,” Octavian said. “Your attacks have weakened us. You have done well.”
Corocotta tilted his head in acknowledgment when the words were translated for him, but he didn’t otherwise respond. Juba was studying him intently, head to toe. The Shard had to be here. He had to have it with him. That was why he was so confident. But where? What would it look like?
It would have a black stone somehow, wouldn’t it? The Trident did. So did the Palladium. And so did the Aegis of Zeus. Surely the Shard to control fire would be the same.
The man had leather bands around his neck, and animal claws and crystals were tied upon them, but none of them were dark in color, much less the deep, light-swallowing blackness of the stones in the Shards.
“Vellica, too, runs low on supplies,” Octavian said. “You have weakened our supply lines, but that has not weakened our siege.”
“I agree that you are wise to attack Vellica now,” Corocotta replied.
“It will fall tomorrow,” Octavian said.
“Perhaps,” Corocotta said. In addition to the spear in his hand, the man had a sword at his hip, and the ball of its pommel was just visible when his movememt shifted his fur cloak: it was a simple bronze, though, little different from the weapon that the praetorian held level at his back.
“When it does, we will be the victors,” Octavian said. “And those who remain in the city, no matter how bravely they fight, will be the fools. Should I offer them the chance to surrender before the attack?”
Corocotta shrugged. “If you did, they would not take it. Among the Cantabri it is said that it is better to die in honor than to live in shame. They do not believe there is honor under Roman rule.”
“And you? What do you believe?”
Corocotta thought for several long seconds after the little girl finished translating. “I believe in Roman gold,” he said. “One million Sesterces.”
Juba saw that Tiberius frowned, but several of the Roman officers chuckled at both the audacity and the forthrightness of the man.
Octavian also laughed for a moment. “The man looking out for his own head is perhaps the wisest of all,” he said. He appraised the big man once more, and Juba wondered if he, too, was looking for the Shard. “Very well. I offered one million Sesterces for the capture of Corocotta, and it seems that Corocotta himself has claimed it.” He turned to Carisius. “An odd position, is it not?”