After they had returned to the encampment, Juba had asked no questions as to why his wife had hurried ahead to the tent, insisting that he check to be sure that Octavian was still alive. His exhaustion, Selene suspected, had overwhelmed any suspicion.
Still later, when he’d come at last to the tent, when they were alone, Juba had asked only the briefest of questions about how she had done what she did. He’d nodded. He’d told her how brave she had been. How proud he was of her. He’d helped her out of the Aegis, and a profound weariness had overtaken her. The Shards hidden as best he could manage among their things, he’d helped settle her into the bed. He never even asked why unfamiliar sheets were upon it.
She’d burned the old ones.
The door to Caesar’s room opened, and one of the assistants appeared. “He is calling for you now,” the man said.
Juba nodded, stood, and with his hand still in hers helped Selene do the same. She smiled in a gratitude that ran to the core of her heart.
As they passed the door, the assistant leaned close to whisper, “Be brief. He is still weak.” Then he quietly closed the door behind them, leaving them alone with the emperor of Rome.
He lay in a bed of great cushions and silks, propped up on pillows. The doors to the balcony behind the bed were open, and Selene could see the ever-breathing waves of the sea over the roofs of the city beyond them. In the room she shared with Juba they could taste the salt of those waves, but here the air was thick instead with medicinal oils and burning incense that drifted on the trembling little breeze.
Octavian had never been an imposing man. Unlike his adopted father, Julius, or his great rival and Selene’s father, Mark Antony, he could little intimidate with his stature. His success, his power, lay in his determination, his will to dominate, and his shrewd cunning to forego small battles in favor of final victory in a larger war. That, and his singular focus on his goal.
The Peace of Rome.
If he was an unimpressive physical figure in his best days, he was startlingly weak now. His face was gaunt, his skin pale and stretched over his cheekbones. His eyes were dark-rimmed and sunken, and when he smiled and beckoned them forward it was with frail arms.
“Lord Caesar,” Juba said, bowing low before advancing to the bedside.
Selene followed suit, and the two of them sat in chairs that had clearly been set there for just such audiences.
“I’ve seen better days,” Octavian said, his voice a tired rasp.
Juba smiled. “Could be worse, Caesar.”
“Indeed so. I’ll be bedridden all winter, I fear, but I could be dead, my brother. I should be.” He closed his eyes to take a deep breath. “You saved me,” he said when he opened them again. “Both of you.”
Selene nodded her head in a kind of bow, hoping it would hide her moment of panicked fear. What did Octavian remember of the escape? Had he seen them using the Shards?
Juba’s hand was once more in hers, and he squeezed it in reassurance, steadying her. “We could not leave you behind,” he said.
“Yes, you could have. And perhaps you should have.”
“Lord Caesar,” Selene started to object, “we would never—”
His frail arm raised again, cutting her off. “You have more cause to hate me than most, Selene. I will not have us pretend otherwise. But that morning of the attack … I tried to explain why.”
Selene nodded. “The Peace of Rome. It is a worthy dream.”
“I am glad you think so,” he said. Once more he took a deep breath, though his voice was seeming stronger than it had been. “I want you to be a part of it. Both of you.”
“How can we serve, Lord Caesar?” Juba asked.
“By becoming what you were meant to be.”
“I don’t understand,” Selene said.
“A queen, my lady.”
Selene blinked. A queen? For a moment Selene’s heart soared, as visions of a return to Egypt danced in her head. But she pushed them away. Whatever paths were set before her, no road could lead her back to Alexandria. Caesar would never allow it. To think otherwise was a childish, foolish hope.
“And you a king, my brother. Naturally.” Octavian laughed lightly for a moment before a cough cut him off. Juba reached out to hold his shoulder as he shook, and then lowered him back into the pillows when the fit had passed.
“Shall I get someone?” Selene asked.
Another raspy deep breath from Caesar, and he shook his head. “Please don’t. They’ve no idea what ails me.” He turned to Juba. “But you do.”
Juba nodded. “You should not have done that. You shouldn’t have grabbed it. You knew the danger.”
“Only too well. But I had to do it. You’re no slave, my brother. I was wrong to use you as I have.” There were tears in Octavian’s tired eyes. “I only hope you can forgive me.”
Juba’s jaw tightened, and Selene wondered at the emotions that must be surging through him. He squeezed her hand once again. “I have. You did what you thought right. Sometimes the hard decision must be made for the greater good. A great man once told me that, in the tomb of Alexander the Great.”
Caesar nodded in remembrance. Selene remembered it, too. She was there that day, though Octavian did not know it. She listened from behind a door as her future husband negotiated for the lives of her and her brothers with the man who would become the emperor.
“Peace is a greater good,” she whispered. It was true, after all, though she still wasn’t sure if she could live it. She abruptly realized that her free hand was resting against her belly, and she consciously moved it away.
Octavian shifted on his pillows. “I do believe in that dream,” he said. “I always will. But I know now there are things that should not be done. There are powers that cannot be used again.”
“I agree,” Juba said.
“And so tonight will be your last night in charge of the watch.” Octavian’s voice, though still weak, nevertheless managed the tone of command. No matter his physical appearance, he was, Selene thought, every ounce a leader of men. “You will prepare at once to go to Mauretania.”
“Mauretania?” It was a frontier province, south of Hispania on the other side of the sea. It was almost as far from Egypt as it was possible to be.
“I cannot have you in Egypt,” Octavian said. “But you will be a queen, Selene.”
“Thank you, Lord Caesar,” she said.
“I realize, too, that I never formally gave you both a wedding gift.”
“Already you have done so much,” Juba said.
Octavian simply smiled. “There was a wagon in Vellica. A wagon Corocotta had taken from me.”
Selene nodded, but it was Juba who spoke. “One million Sesterces.”
Octavian shrugged his thin shoulders. “Corocotta managed to take a few bags with him before he fled, but yes, most of it was still there when the legions arrived. It’s yours now. It will go with you to Mauretania, though I may keep the wagon.”
Selene just stared, as did Juba. Octavian let out another weak laugh.
“I … I don’t know what to say,” Selene said.
“You need say nothing. You saved my life. You saved Juba’s. You gave me victory in Vellica, a victory that will be proclaimed across the empire as a most glorious and honorable win—omitting, as it must, my capture, my illness, and whatever it was that you did to bring us out of there. History will never know the truth of what happened, Selene. I do not think I want to know it. But I do know that whatever happened, however it happened, you alone succeeded where my legions could not. And whatever else you might think of me, please know I am a man who pays my debts. I reward those who are loyal to me. I only hope this will be true for the king and queen of Mauretania.”