Isidora blinked in the half-light. “You must hate him.”
“I have great reason to do so.”
“But you saved his life.”
Selene nodded, thinking about what Juba had said. The Peace of Rome. A dream that perhaps existed beyond vengeance. “I did.”
“I do not understand, my lady. But I will trust you. I will follow you, whatever your choice.”
Selene opened her mouth to tell her what a fool’s errand it was to follow her, how so little good had come of her choices, but she knew it wasn’t what the girl needed to hear. “We will leave these shores,” she said. “You need to know that. I understand if you don’t want to go.”
“Is it far?”
“Not far. Caesar has given us the kingdom of Mauretania, south across the sea. He has given me a great dowry as a late wedding gift, and we will rule there as king and queen.”
“I will go with you. I told you, there’s nothing for me here.”
“I’m glad.”
Isidora smiled, as if she’d never heard such a kindness. Then her eyes widened a little. “So you are a queen.”
I always was, Selene thought. She smiled and nodded.
“Then may I ask one more question, my queen?”
“If you promise not to address me like that in private.”
Isidora’s smile melded into a blush. Then for a moment she seemed to be searching for the right words. “Is it … was it for this gift that you did not kill him?”
“It was not,” Selene said, glad that her motives were far beyond wealth. But if not that, then what were they? How could she explain what she herself still didn’t understand? The Peace of Rome. The words had haunted her dreams for weeks. “Nor was it for the kingdom. I didn’t kill him because I think that he’s right.”
“So you have made your peace with Rome?”
Selene felt her eyes begin to drift toward the little glass vial for a moment, and she had to force herself to look at Isidora. “Almost.”
Isidora nodded. “I am glad. I’ve had enough of war.” She leveraged herself up and took her crutch. “Will there be anything else?”
“No, thank you.” Only now did Selene let her gaze fall upon the vial. She had to do it. And it had to be tonight.
“I can stay if you need.” Isidora’s voice was a whisper.
Selene swallowed hard, tried to smile as she looked away from the glass to the girl who would be, she was certain, her friend. “I’ll be fine.” A part of her had hoped that saying it would help her believe it, but it only spiked her fear. “But please stay close, my gift of Isis. I may call upon you if I need help.”
Isidora’s smile was broken with worry, but she nodded and bowed before retreating to the door. Once there, her hand upon it, she paused. “I remember when I was younger I did believe in the gods,” she said. “I still want to. But I don’t believe in them. I can’t. Not anymore.” At last she turned back to look over her shoulder as she leaned on her crutch. “But I do believe in you, Lady Selene.”
Selene knew nothing to say, but Isidora only nodded once more and then opened the door, limping out into the growing night.
When the door was shut, when she was alone, Selene turned and looked out again over the town. Juba was out there somewhere. Her husband. Her king. Her lover.
He didn’t know what she carried, what Tiberius had given her, what was growing in the dark. It would destroy him if he did. It was vengeance, and it would destroy them both. He couldn’t know. It couldn’t survive.
She took a deep, long breath of the cool night air. Then, before she could change her mind, she reached for the vial and swiftly uncorked it.
“Some things we must never speak of,” she said.
She raised the glass to her lips, and she drank.
PART III
THE GATES OF HELL
21
THE ASTROLOGER’S ALLY
CAESAREA, 25 BCE
Even from out on the waters of the bay, Thrasyllus was stunned by the level of the construction under way in Caesarea. For months the Mediterranean had been buzzing with tales of how the new king and queen of Mauretania had renamed the seat of their kingdom in honor of Augustus Caesar and were engaged in a massive program of public works that seemed destined to make it the jewel of the western end of the sea. All along the shoreline he could see that workers were busy: from the bustling port to the scaffolding that clambered over buildings old and new, which were fast rising, built in a style that Thrasyllus quickly recognized as half Greek and half Roman. It had the feel of a new beginning, and a new beginning was everything Thrasyllus intended to have in his life.
After his failed attempt at capturing Lucius Vorenus, Thrasyllus had been wracked with guilt and despair. The gods had given him such clear direction in leading him to the Roman outlaw, but then all had been lost. And what was worse, he now had blood on his hands. He’d killed Seker and taken his coins that night beside the canal—slashed at the man with a blind rage that made him feel sick every time the memory came back. Even now he didn’t like to look at his hands, for fear that he would once more see the thick blood upon them, clinging to his skin, dried to grit beneath his nails.
On the journey back to Alexandria that night, he’d thought about going to the Roman authorities for a reward, to tell them what he knew about Vorenus being at Elephantine—and even the conspiracy of Didymus working with him—but doing so he would have to admit to his own act of murder and his complicity in several more. In the new order of Augustus Caesar’s Rome, such violence would not go unpunished. And even if he somehow went unpunished by the Romans, Thrasyllus was certain they’d never let a murderer lead the greatest library the world had ever seen. All was lost.
With no other prospects, he’d once more rented his old room in the city, feeling guilty to be using the slain man’s coins but grateful not to be forced to once more beg of Apion and Didymus at the Great Library. To assuage the guilt and pass the time, he’d bought cheap wine by small casks.
Whatever else he expected of his life, he never would have imagined that a week later there would come a knock at the door, and that he would open it to see Lapis standing in the same hallway where he’d first met Seker and the giant, scarred Roman who had doomed the ambush.
One half of her face was bruised near to black, her cheek swollen to the point that all he could see of one eye was a pupil surrounded by red. A line of blood had run its way down the side of her head, smeared into hair that clung to her scalp. Her clothes were disheveled and torn. More blood was smeared upon her body. Her one good eye sparkled for a moment when she saw him, the slightest smile turning up like a wince at the corner of her mouth. “Stargazer,” she whispered, and then she’d fallen forward into his arms.
Thrasyllus looked over to her now, where she stood not far away along the railing of the ship, smiling and talking with another of the passengers, an older woman who appeared to be somewhat wealthy.
The gods had taken his dreams away, only to give him one that was greater.
He had given up drinking that night. The money that he’d once spent on wine he now spent on salves and bandages and medicinal aids to help bring her back to health. When her health still teetered, when she fell into a fever that refused to break, he paid for someone to sit with her while he set aside his pride and went to the Great Library, begged for forgiveness from Apion, offering to submit himself to the lowliest work in the inkroom if only he would also be allowed to access the books on medicine. When he’d come home that day, he’d brought with him a copy of the inscriptions on the Asclepeion at Epidaurus, two texts by Erasistratus of Chios, and a bouquet of fresh flowers from the harbor market that he set in a vase by her bedside.