Vorenus sighed. “You were certainly right about the troubles of being recognized at the Great Library.”
“The blame for that is mine,” Caesarion said. “You had been against meeting with Didymus. Khenti’s death is mine to bear.”
Vorenus nodded. Then he reached over and patted the knee of his big friend. “But if not for that tragedy, I suppose we would not have met again. Good can come from evil things.”
“All is not suffering,” Hannah said, smiling.
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Pullo said. “Seker found me in the slums a year or two ago, where I was doing anything I could do for the coin to buy bread. He hired me and paid me well enough. I didn’t like hurting people, but he told me I wouldn’t really need to.”
Caesarion smiled. “One look at our giant here and people got in line? I know the feeling. As a kid I was scared to death of the great Pullo. Still am, I think.”
Color blushed the big man’s cheeks, turning his scars into rivers of dark blood. “Well, he was right, anyway. Mostly I just stood around and grunted now and then. I really can’t tell you much beyond that. This scholar came to us about kidnapping someone he said was worth a pretty coin. I didn’t know until the moment of it that it was Vorenus here. Was like seeing a ghost.”
“For me, too,” Vorenus said.
“Well,” Pullo said, his voice taking on a mock-defensive tone, “I did die. So maybe I am part ghost.”
“The finest ghost I could ask for,” Caesarion replied. “Any special powers come back with you?”
Pullo frowned and bit on his lip in concentration as he turned his hands over and back in front of himself. “Doesn’t seem so. Just the strength of Hercules, but that’s nothing new.”
“Just the same old Pullo, then,” Vorenus said.
“Older old Pullo,” the big man replied, cracking his neck for emphasis.
“I don’t think so,” Hannah said, interrupting their companionship. When Ceasarion looked over, he saw that she had that look upon her face again, only this time she was giving it to Pullo. “Not the same man at all. He was sent back. That makes you quite special indeed, Titus Pullo.”
Pullo blushed. “We don’t know what for. And maybe it was all in my head. I don’t know.”
“I don’t think so,” Hannah said. “I think you saw beyond.”
Pullo seemed suddenly nervous to be the center of everyone’s attention. “Well, anyway, that’s my story. And I don’t think it’s the important thing right now.”
The big man looked over at Vorenus, who started to open his mouth, then closed it again.
“What is it?” Hannah asked.
Vorenus stared at the ground and shook his head for a moment before looking up to address them. “He means the Ark. We need to move it.”
“Why?”
When Vorenus didn’t answer her right away, Caesarion started putting the pieces together. “Because of this scholar, Thrasyllus. You think if he heard enough to know to attack you on the canal, he might have heard enough to know that we are here.”
“He might have.”
Caesarion frowned. It was possible, he supposed.
“He never said anything about this place,” Pullo said. “Or about the Ark. Or about you, Caesarion.”
“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t know,” Vorenus said. “He killed Seker, right?”
Pullo nodded in agreement. “He did. Stabbed him in the back.”
“So he’s capable of deceit,” Vorenus said. “He wants to hide something.”
“He also probably didn’t have the money to pay what he promised,” Pullo pointed out. “When he saw that everything had gone wrong he might have just killed the man for his money.”
It was a valid point, Caesarion thought. “If he knew about me, though, why go after you? I mean no offense, Vorenus, but I can only imagine that my head is worth rather more than yours these days.”
Vorenus smiled. “No offense at all, Pharaoh. Honestly? I think he might have been greedy. Maybe he wanted to use me to get to all this. So he could have the Ark all to himself.”
Caesarion found himself frowning again. “Maybe.”
“He never struck me as a schemer,” Pullo said, “though I’m admittedly not the best judge of character. I have been friends with Vorenus for quite a long time, which says a lot.”
Everyone smiled, but the mirth didn’t last long amid such serious matters. “I think it’s something we need to consider,” Vorenus said. “It would be prudent to move the Ark.”
Caesarion nodded. Prudence was indeed wisdom, though the danger seemed slight. He turned to Hannah. She was the keeper of the Ark, after all. Any decision would have to be up to her. “What do you think?”
Even frowning she was more beautiful than anyone he’d ever laid eyes on. Love did that to your point of view. Caesarion had read enough stories of love to know the truth of that old wisdom. But he also knew that it didn’t really matter when you were the one in love.
“Hard to say,” she said. “You’re right that this is a danger, Lucius Vorenus. And it is true that we should be mindful to protect the Ark above all else.”
Pullo’s brow raised. “But?”
Hannah chewed on the inside of her cheek as she thought, an odd habit that Caesarion had long found endearing. “But we cannot jump at shadows,” she finally said. “We cannot move the Ark at every whisper of something that may be wrong. It is hidden here for now, safe with the help of people we know and trust. It will need to be moved at some point, but to do so we would have to get it into the open. That might only compound our dangers. This is why the Ark was placed in Alexandria so long ago: we could not continue to move it. The Shard needed a home where it could be safe. And it was safe there. For three centuries it was safe.”
“And you think this can be its home now?” Pullo asked.
“I don’t know,” Hannah admitted. “Perhaps not. But it served as a temple for the Ark once before. Perhaps it can again.”
“Though it had to be moved from here because it was unsafe,” Vorenus pointed out.
Hannah nodded. “This is true. But it was a different time. We don’t know what is to come.”
“The truth is,” Caesarion said quietly, “that we know precious little at all.”
Pullo made a scoffing noise. “I think Vorenus is right, but then I usually do. At the same time, this Thrasyllus is just one man. What harm could he do?”
Vorenus looked at the ground. “Khenti is dead because of that one man.”
For a few moments everyone was silent. Then, at last, Hannah let out a heavy breath. “He can do little enough alone. The only danger now would be if he got help, right?”
Vorenus thought for a long time, then he finally agreed.
Hannah nodded. “Then it is settled. The Ark stays here for now.”
20
GROWING IN DARKNESS
TARRACO, 26 BCE
Almost two months after she rescued Juba and Caesar, Selene sat with her husband on a bench outside the room where Caesar continued his recovery. Praetorians stood to either side of the door before them, faces impassive, eyes straight ahead. Selene’s hand slid across the stone, touched his, and their fingers intertwined. They so rarely touched these days, and the connection made her want both to smile and weep.
Neither of them had spoken of the traumas they had suffered while they were apart. Between their exhaustion and the uncertainty of what would happen to Caesar—and what his health might mean for them—it had been as if a distance had settled between them since Vellica had burned, since the legionnaires who’d swept forward at the first signs of smoke had found them all, stumbling from the hillfort’s walls, carrying the fevered Octavian. Tiberius, Juba later learned, had objected to the assault, but Carisius had nevertheless called out the legions. He had come down onto the field personally when word came up through the ranks that Caesar was in danger, so Selene and Juba had been standing by Carisius when the burning gate of Vellica gave way and the legionnaires entered the hillfort and began sweeping out what was left of the Cantabrians, sending them fleeing into the rocky hills.