The guardsman nodded even as he was starting to beg leave for the disturbance. “Out of Rome, sir. Bearing dispatches for Lord Antony. We thought you’d want to be informed.”
Vorenus felt his stomach drop. Such messages could only mean that the whispers of war in the air would soon be the heavy footfalls of war on the ground. “Yes. Thank you. Keep them at the inner gate. I’ll be along shortly.”
After the Egyptian hastened back down the stairs, Vorenus instinctively raised his head to gaze out across the glittering waters of Alexandria’s Great Harbor, toward distant Rome, as if some reflection of the impending doom might be found there. Only the massive height of the Great Lighthouse on Pharos, and the slow-curling smoke of its distant fire, met his eye.
The sound of happy children brought Vorenus’ attention once more to the square below. Cleopatra’s three youngest—the eight-year-old twins Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios, and the littlest one, four-year-old Ptolemy Philadelphus, all fathered by Antony—had appeared from the halls of the bright-stoned palace to cheer their older half-brother as he finished the last of his lessons. Behind them swept Cleopatra herself, her thin gown draped close to her sleek body, the cloth whispering to the steady sway of hips that, even as she neared the age of forty, could still drive men to madness. Her raven-black wig fell in perfect straight drapes against the muscles of her back, its sheen matched only by the oiled, rich tan of her smooth skin. She tousled her eldest son’s close-cropped dark hair as the other children gathered around him, then spoke to Pullo.
Pullo, predictably but almost pathetically, still found it difficult to talk in her presence, so it was no surprise that when the queen finished speaking he only gestured, raising an arm to point up to where Vorenus leaned against the wall, watching.
Cleopatra turned, her dark eyes glinting with a promise of unbridled seduction that was, for her, a look of natural habit. Her red-painted lips parted in a weary but thrilling smile. “I’m going to call a council,” she said, her voice strong despite the breathless sound of it. “No matter the word from Rome. Antony fears the worst.”
No, Vorenus thought: Antony didn’t fear the worst, he expected it. For all Vorenus knew of the man, Antony feared nothing. “I’m going now to see to the messengers,” he called down. “Pullo can oversee the council preparations.”
Cleopatra glanced over to the uncomfortable Pullo, nodded ever so slightly in the sunlight, then floated off into the shadows, children in tow. Caesarion lingered for a moment, uncertain, before a word from Pullo sent him hurrying after her.
Satisfied that Pullo could handle things for at least a little while, Vorenus took a deep breath and strode off to greet the men who might be bringing doom to the doorstep of Egypt.
* * *
When Vorenus arrived, the two messengers were dismounting from their horses in the large yard between the massive stone facades of the main hall of the palace and the walls of the royal residences, a public space that remained relatively untouched by the threat of war. Six Egyptian guardsmen stood in a loose ring a respectful distance around the outsiders, and the typical tumult of the yard—a buzzing, dizzying chaos of servants and soldiers, priests and politicians coming and going seemingly everywhere at once—was parting around them with barely a second glance.
The two men, Vorenus saw at once, were unquestionably Roman: their legionnaire uniforms differed from his own only in the amount of road dust upon them. Vorenus therefore greeted them properly as fellow soldiers of Rome, thumping his fist to his chest before bringing it forward in a traditional salute. One man returned the gesture immediately, as if from reflexive instinct. The other man, shorter and stouter than his companion, his right cheek marked with a long, finger-width scar, hesitated for a moment before clumsily returning it.
Vorenus stifled the urge to correct the scar-faced man, reminding himself of how long a road the two men had no doubt just taken. In his early years, long before he and Pullo caught Caesar’s eye in Gaul, he, too, had carried dispatches. He could still remember the bone-tiredness of arrival, when all a man wanted was a bath and a bed. “Lucius Vorenus,” he said by way of introduction. “Senior centurion of the Sixth Legion of Rome. Welcome to Alexandria.”
“Thank you,” the first said, apparently the man of rank between them. “We bring news from Rome.”
“For Mark Antony, I understand.” Vorenus paused while a noisy cart rambled by. “A council is already being gathered to hear it, at the call of Cleopatra.”
The messenger swallowed hard, looked down at his filthy traveling gear. “I don’t suppose there’ll be time…”
“I doubt it,” Vorenus said. “They’ll not want to wait. We’ll see to the horses. And afterward a good meal and a bed.”
The man’s eyes were tired by more than travel, Vorenus could see. The news they brought was clearly ill. “I understand. Thank you.”
“Now,” Vorenus said, trying to keep his tone lighter than the sinking feeling in his heart. “Your orders, please.”
“Of course,” the messenger said, retrieving a small cylinder from his saddlebag.
Vorenus pulled the small slip of parchment from inside the case, taking note of the signatures and seals upon it. “Stertinius of the Seventh Legion,” he said, looking up from his reading. The man he’d been talking to nodded and stood a little straighter. “Then that must make you,” Vorenus said, glancing back to the paper before turning to the second man, “Laenas.”
“That’s right.” The scarred man’s voice had a rough, almost angry quality to it. Parched from the road.
“Not of the Seventh?”
Laenas’ brow furrowed for a moment before he simply shook his head.
“You don’t talk much.”
“Don’t have much to say,” Laenas growled.
“Just a messenger, then?”
When Laenas only nodded, it was Stertinius who spoke. “Laenas is with Octavian’s household,” he said. “He was, ah, personally assigned to accompany me, to see the message delivered.”
Vorenus felt his face start to frown but forced himself to keep up a professional appearance as he rolled up the orders and pocketed them. “Very well. You’ll both need to surrender arms to the guard. And I shouldn’t have to tell you that you’ll be under close watch in the council.”
“Of course,” Stertinius said tiredly. “Though I might attend alone.”
“Oh?” Vorenus turned to Laenas. “I thought you were personally assigned?”
“To get the message here,” he said. “Job’s done.”
Vorenus was opening his mouth to ask another question—about how such a lazy man got to be so well regarded by Octavian—when he saw the scholar Didymus walking past, characteristically oblivious to the hectic commotion of the yard moving around him. Vorenus and Pullo had grown to be firm companions with the children’s tutor over the years; despite his near-lifetime of service in Egypt, the last dozen years as head of the Great Library in Alexandria, the Greek man shared their sense of outsider status in the ever-bewildering court of Egypt. Vorenus was glad for the friendly face. “A bit far from your books, aren’t you, Didymus?” he called.
Out of the corner of his eye, Vorenus thought he saw Laenas’ head jerk up at the mention of the Greek scholar’s name, but when he turned to look the Roman was only unlashing one of his small saddlebags.
For his part, the scholar turned his direction of travel and approached, pushing back his haphazard, prematurely gray hair to reveal a half-guilty grin. “Difficult to leave my dear Homer behind, but I’ve time to spend with the children before an early bed.”
“You’ll have to excuse me,” Vorenus said to Stertinius. He nodded to one of the nearby Egyptian guardsmen. “These men will see to your things.”