“Was,” Pullo said.
Vorenus sighed in agreement. Pullo had known little about the young man who’d hired Seker to ambush them on the canal, but he’d known that he was probably a scholar of some kind. One of the prostitutes that Pullo had helped protect during his years as Seker’s personal thug had called the man her “little astrologer.” That and the fact that he’d known where to find Vorenus could point to only one conclusion: the visit to the Great Library had been compromised. And that meant that anything discussed there, including the location of the Ark, had also been compromised.
Vorenus had been brooding on the matter during the days of their journey across the plains to the sea and thence to the Nile. He’d been thinking about it every day since, as they made their way up the mighty river, passing ancient pyramids and temples.
No matter how much he turned the matter over in his mind, though, his conclusion was always the same.
The Ark had to be moved.
Hannah would fight it, he knew. She believed it was somehow the bonds of fate that the Ark had returned to the temple where it had lain in secrecy from the time it had been stolen away from Jerusalem, until it had been moved to the land of Kush, farther up the Nile to the south. Her family had kept the Ark safe through those centuries, had kept it safe through the centuries beyond after it had fallen into the hands of Alexander and been placed in the hidden chamber built beneath his greatest city to protect it. And now Hannah had managed to bring it safely back here, a new home in old ruins. Her brother had died to see it happen. The other keepers had died. She wouldn’t want to leave.
And that meant Caesarion wouldn’t want to leave. He was twenty-one years old and in love.
“A nice place to live,” Pullo said.
It was true. Elephantine was like a bright green teardrop in the rolling waters of the Nile. It was beautiful, and it was peaceful in ways that Vorenus had learned more and more to appreciate. “It’s not Alexandria,” he said.
“Some parts of Alexandria are nicer than others.”
“True,” Vorenus said, once more wondering what Pullo had done and seen in their time apart.
The boat tacked and slid through the water to the east. Soon Elephantine began to pass by on their right as they made their way under sail against the current. Looking ahead, Vorenus could just see the first blocks of old buildings and weathered columns rising out from the verdant vegetation that covered the quiet island.
Pullo saw the architecture, too. “It’s beautiful. But an odd place for a Jewish temple.”
“Well, this all started as a trading center,” Vorenus explained. “A real mix of people. The first cataract has long marked—”
“Cataract?”
“Rapids in the river. There are five or six of them, I’ve heard. You’ll see the first just upstream of the island. For a long time, the first cataract marked the border of Egypt. Farther south was the kingdom of Kush.”
“Where the Ark was before Alexandria?”
“Good memory,” Vorenus said, beaming over at his friend. As Alexandria was falling to Rome, their old friend Didymus had brought them to the Temple of Serapis, where they’d met Hannah and the other keepers of the Ark. There they’d learned much about the history of the Shards and how that particular artifact had passed from Egypt to Jerusalem and back. “I’m impressed you can remember that,” he teased.
Pullo grinned, and for a moment it felt as if they were back in the legion. “Don’t be too impressed, though. It’s about all I remember. The king kept it, right? And then he made an agreement with Alexander the Great: the conqueror would leave Kush alone, but in return the Ark would be kept safe in Alexandria. Is that close?”
“Essentially. They secretly used the Ark to help build the city, including the construction of the Third Temple to house it.”
“A third one?”
“That’s what Hannah calls it, though as many places as the Ark has been I don’t know what makes something a temple or not in her eyes. I think maybe it has something to do with the design of it. Or maybe how long the Ark was there. The first two were in Jerusalem. The third was in Alexandria, and she sometimes calls this one the fourth. But since it was here before it ever went to Alexandria, and somewhere in Kush between … well, I don’t know. I guess I haven’t actually thought to ask, but I’m sure Hannah has her reasons.”
“She’s a remarkable girl,” Pullo said. “I remember that.”
“A woman now,” Vorenus corrected. “We’re getting old, remember?”
“Can’t forget that even if I’d like to.”
“Also, you’d figure it out soon enough, but I might as well tell you: she and Caesarion—”
“I knew it!” Pullo cut him off with a hearty laugh that also reminded Vorenus of younger times. Then the big man clapped his back—a sudden blow of camaraderie that, while painful, was something else he had missed all these years. “I knew it that night. The way he looked at her. I knew it.” Pullo beamed—proud, Vorenus suspected, of both his own keen observation and Caesarion’s choice.
Either way, Vorenus couldn’t help but smile, too. “I think everyone saw it. And the important thing is that he’s happy. Truly so. She’s been good to him. And good for him. It was hard, you know. He lost his mother and his home that night.”
“A kingdom, too. Egypt would have been his, Vorenus. Rome, too. All of it should be his.”
“You know he never wanted any of that,” Vorenus replied. Caesarion’s status as the son of both Julius Caesar and Cleopatra had meant he was destined to rule the world, and they both knew that he would have been an extraordinary ruler—most especially because he didn’t want the power for its own sake. It was that same status that had made him Octavian’s foremost enemy during the civil war, the reason that his continued existence couldn’t be known to anyone.
They were silent for a minute as the ferry swept into another tack on its way up the river. The colonnade that marked the location of the small harbor on the southeast corner of the island was just coming into view. Farther upstream, on the mainland shore of the river, a group of fishing boats was moving into the little town of Syene, which housed the local Roman garrison.
“I heard the boys died,” Pullo said, his voice tightening up. “I assume he knows?”
Vorenus nodded, remembering Caesarion’s younger half-siblings, the children Cleopatra had born to Mark Antony. “He does. Ptolemy Philadelphus died not long after they reached Rome. Just an illness, we heard. Bad luck. Alexander Helios died only a little later.”
“He was always so sickly.”
“His sister is well, though,” Vorenus said, forcing himself to focus on happier thoughts. “I was actually there when our little Cleopatra Selene stood up to Octavian. It was extraordinary.”
Pullo raised an eyebrow. “Oh? I would have liked to see that. Always hated that devious prick.”
“She was made to marry Juba the Numidian as a result. The one who used the Trident against us at Actium.”
“He’s the one who cut my legs,” Pullo interrupted. “The one Caesarion fought off.”
Vorenus looked over at him, surprised at the sudden sharp hostility in his friend’s voice, and the unexpected disclosure of what had happened while they were apart. He wondered if he should press him about it, despite Pullo’s insistence on only telling the tale once.