Day after day he’d fallen asleep upon the latest medical texts he’d brought home from the Library, and day by day he succeeded where the physicians had not: he stopped Lapis’s internal bleeding, he broke her fever, and he was able to greet her with a smile and the latest bunch of fresh flowers when she at last opened her eyes and smiled at him once more.
Down along the railing, Lapis laughed: a sweet sound, like the song of a morning bird. She took leave of the woman she’d been speaking with, and she began walking in his direction, a smile that could stop the sun upon her face.
She still had a slight limp from what the men who’d taken her had done to her legs, but she’d somehow melded it into a sway of her elegant hips that never failed to thrill his heart. Beyond that, there was nothing to show that she had been beaten so close to death upon the streets.
“My stargazer,” she said, coming up to lean against his side. Her head fell against his shoulder as she joined him in looking out over the waves. The salty breeze off the water raised strands of her black hair, tickling at his cheek.
“You seem to make friends wherever you go,” he said, smiling into the sunshine.
She pinched his side playfully. “And you should try talking to people. You can’t learn everything from books, you know.”
“I know. I just don’t have the knack like you do.”
“It just takes practice. I wasn’t that good when I first had to talk to strangers. I just got better at it over the years.”
Thrasyllus nodded, decided to take the conversation in another direction. “So what did you learn from that stranger?” he said, nodding back to the older woman she’d been talking with.
“Not much. Only how to meet the king and queen.”
Thrasyllus stiffened and looked down at her. She was still staring out to sea, but he could see enough of the curve of her cheek to see that she was smiling. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Lapis nodded. “Very much so.”
“But how—?”
“Trade secrets.”
“But really, how did you—”
“She’s married to a wine trader,” Lapis said. “As it happens, he’s friends with the man who supplies the palace. She said she shouldn’t have any problem getting you an audience.”
Thrasyllus just stared for a moment. “What did you tell her about me?”
Lapis pulled away and turned to look him up and down. “Only the truth: that you were one of the finest scholars in the world. Well, that and the fact that you have a message from the Great Library of Alexandria, which is a little true.”
Meeting with Juba and Selene had indeed been his plan, and he’d made no secret of that with Lapis. Caesarea could be a fresh start for them both, he’d told her. It was a chance for a new life, far away from what they had been in Alexandria, far away from what they had done and seen. And he had information that he’d learned at the Library that could help him find favor with the new king and queen. They could use the last of the precious few coins they had to get there, to find a room, to find work. Then he’d find a way to meet with the young royalty. So this was indeed the plan. He just hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly. “How long?”
“A few days at most. I was very charming.”
Thrasyllus felt like laughing at the perfection of it, at the perfection of her. It would work. He’d lie and tell them he had a message for them from Didymus. Not really a lie, he supposed. What he’d learned about the Shards did come from the old man in the end. So of course they would want to see him. Then he could tell them what he’d overheard about the strength of these items being greater in sacred places. And they’d reward him, give him a chance to start a new life. Maybe even let him start his own library here.
“I … I hope that was all right,” Lapis said, her voice suddenly uncertain.
Thrasyllus shook himself from his thoughts and smiled at her. “Of course it is. I’m just … amazed at you, that’s all.”
Lapis smiled back, and he continued to be astonished that her warmth felt so genuine. “Do you remember what I told you, my stargazer? After I woke up. After I’d come to your room because I didn’t know where else to go and you were one of the only ones who’d ever been nice to me. After you saved me. Do you remember what I said?”
Thrasyllus had to look away from the intensity of her azure eyes. He blinked out across the water at the growing city of Caesarea. “You said I could have you. All of you. That you owed me your life.”
“And that I would repay you with whatever was left of the life you gave me. So I am. My old life is done. Seker left me, and I don’t know what became of him. There’s only you. And if you want to see the king and queen of Mauretania, then by all the gods of heaven and earth I will see it done.”
Not for the first time, Thrasyllus thought about telling her that he’d killed Seker, that he’d bought her this freedom—but then he knew he’d have to tell her that in so doing he’d taken away her protection, that he’d left her alone in the streets to be taken and beaten.
Without meaning to do so, he found that he had pulled his father’s coin out and that he was rubbing it between his fingers as he thought.
“What are you thinking, stargazer?”
Thrasyllus caught up the coin in his hand and squeezed it hard. “I’m thinking that I adore you, Lapis. Opening the door that night was the best thing I’ve ever done. And I’m thinking that I need to get better clothes. I can’t meet the king and queen of this place dressed as a simple traveler.”
“Truly so.”
“But we hardly have anything left. We still need to find a room. Food. Work. Not to mention—”
One of her thin fingers came up and rested gently upon his lips, stilling his speech. She smiled in a look that was at once proud and mischievous. “I thought about that.” She pulled her finger away and her hand slipped into the fold of her robe for a moment. When it came out, she was holding a small coin purse that he did not recognize.
He started to ask where she’d gotten it, but then he realized he already knew. The wine trader’s wife. Lapis hadn’t just been talking to her.
Thrasyllus reached out and enfolded her in a hug.
The gods indeed worked in mysterious ways, he reminded himself. And no way was more mysterious than love.
22
THE TEMPLE OF THE ARK
ELEPHANTINE, 25 BCE
The night was heavy with a thick fog, and the twisting earthen path between buildings of mud-brick and stone could be confusing enough in clear daylight, but Vorenus wasn’t the slightest bit worried he would get lost. Even if he hadn’t walked the meandering route a thousand times before, Vorenus would have known he was getting closer to the temples by the unmistakable whisper of frankincense that floated ever stronger in the cool, pre-dawn air. Over the smell of the sporadic torches and oil lamps hanging beside doorways that gave a feeble push against the cloudy shadows upon the island, that sweet lemony-pine aroma drew him onward into the night.
Pullo, limping at his side, yawned in the dark. “Do you think they got any sleep at all?”
Vorenus didn’t need to ask who he was referring to. Caesarion had been staying up for far too many nights this past year, working with the information that Vorenus had brought to him, trying to better understand the functioning of the Ark of the Covenant. As ever, Hannah had been by his side through it all. “I doubt it.”
“Seems like she should be getting more sleep, even if he doesn’t.”
Vorenus shrugged. Caesarion and Hannah had been married for only two months when she had announced the happy news that she was pregnant. But rather than slow down their work, it seemed to have only intensified it, as if they were in a race with the coming of the child. When Vorenus had asked about it, Caesarion would only say that the child made it all the more urgent that they understand how to use the Ark and how to keep it safe. “I suspect they know best.”