Blood was hanging in the air like frozen red rain, the big man still falling, as Juba’s momentum carried him around and he drove his blade to the hilt up and through the lower back of the young man standing between him and the Ark.
Juba let go of his grip, allowing the young man to crumple, blade protruding from his gut, onto the stones behind the Ark. Juba stepped over him, the wave of power from the Aegis ebbing and time shifting back into proper speed.
He heard screaming and crashing, wet sounds close to his feet. Caesarion and the girl on the other side of the Ark were spinning and preparing to defend themselves. Four bows started to turn in his direction. Too late.
Imagining the power to come, feeling the power that he already had, Juba smiled. Then he reached out and calmly placed a hand on each of the angels atop the Ark.
28
THE END OF A KINGDOM
ALEXANDRIA, 30 BCE
The island of Antirhodos appeared tranquil in the early morning light. The harbor waves still broke on its sandy shores. The palm trees still swayed along its promenades. Its small royal palace still stood, no differently than it had for years.
Vorenus, standing beside Khenti on the foredeck of the Roman trireme they’d taken at Actium, thought the island seemed a perfect, peaceful antithesis to the chaotic fall of the city around it.
He and Khenti had seen the beginnings of that chaos as they’d run, hardly stopping for breath, from the Serapeum across the city to the Lochian palace and its sheltered, royal harbor. Fast-moving Roman scouts had already been riding through the streets on horseback, setting fire to the occasional building and happily racing down the few civilians daring the daylight, trampling them with their hooves. Fires were being set, too, by the Alexandrians themselves; Vorenus had never known a community to fall without some of its citizens turning on each other, beginning the process of looting and execution before the invaders arrived en masse and controls could be put in place by the conquering commanders. He and the Egyptian had been forced to take a long path to reach the palace as a result of the many predawn terrors, and by the time they’d reached the harbor, the sun was rising and the trumpeting calls of the invading army’s horns were echoing close indeed.
What chaos was going on in the streets now, Vorenus could only imagine, though he could see the evidence of it in the form of at least a dozen smoke columns threading up into the sky above Alexandria. Buildings were being torched. Stores were being robbed. Women were being raped. People—innocent people—were dying.
He could hear none of it. He could see none of it. But he knew it was so. No matter how often the Romans claimed to be civilized, men were all barbarians in the heat of battle. And never more so than when they won.
Vorenus knew. He’d been one of them.
“The city begins to smoke,” Khenti said.
Vorenus was accustomed to the dispassionate, businesslike nature of the Egyptian’s voice, but to hear him speak so about the destruction of his home nevertheless made him shiver. “I don’t think Octavian will let it all burn.”
When Khenti didn’t reply immediately, Vorenus looked over to him and saw that the Egyptian was looking to the rear of their ship. “Manu wonders if he may bring us into the docks on the south side of the island. The docks of the royal harbor might be too tight.”
Khenti had been efficient in conscripting a crew for their trireme at Lochias. Though they’d been forced to leave a bit shorthanded on the oars—Khenti could find only so many guards in the short time they had—they’d been fortunate to find Manu actually working down in the royal harbor when they’d arrived. There was no more experienced captain in the Egyptian ranks, though Vorenus had never heard him speak a word to anyone. He’d long suspected, in fact, that the captain was a mute. How Khenti and others managed to communicate so well with him despite his apparent silence was a wonder. “The south side is fine,” Vorenus said. “Whatever he thinks best.”
Khenti nodded back toward the keel, then returned his attention forward. The ship began to turn beneath them, the bow angling off to port. Vorenus closed his eyes to feel the steady beat of the oarsmen rocking them forward through the harbor. He’d never liked riding upon the sea—especially after Actium—but there was nevertheless something soothing about the rowing of a warship, something that reminded him of waves on the shore. Like a mother’s heartbeat, he supposed. He’d seen many an angry, crying child comforted upon a parent’s breast, lulled to quiet and sleep by that sound and that feeling of home, and perhaps it was the same with men and the sea. He’d never experienced holding a child himself—his duties had left him no time for children of his own, no doubt part of the reason he felt so close to Cleopatra’s young family—but he’d seen it often enough to think it similar.
“Some Romans have beaten us to the island,” Khenti said.
Vorenus opened his eyes. Manu had steered them around the island, bringing them into line with the docks on its south side, and they could see now that another boat was already docked there: a bigger ship than their own, flying Roman colors. More than that, a golden eagle standard was set at its foredeck. “Not just any Romans,” Vorenus said, quickly thinking through their options before deciding that there was nothing to do but carry on with the hope of rescuing the children, the only family he’d ever known. “It’s Octavian.”
* * *
A squad of legionnaires was waiting for them on the dock. There was no fight. Facing perhaps two dozen well-armed and coordinated Romans, Vorenus and Khenti knew they were outmatched. Yet Vorenus still believed he might manage to negotiate a peaceful outcome, some way of getting the children out under the pretense of the Roman flag their trireme flew. Besides, he was himself a Roman, was he not? Even after all that had happened, a part of him still clung to that land of his birth. They’d listen to reason, he was sure.
All such hope disappeared once he and Khenti stepped foot on the island. The Roman squad leader, a veteran man Vorenus didn’t recognize at first, stepped forward to address him. “Lucius Vorenus,” he said.
“Do I know you?”
The Roman smiled. “Too long among the filth and you’ve forgotten your old comrades. We served together in Gaul.”
Vorenus squinted, finally saw behind the wrinkled face and whitened hair the man he’d known. “Galbus?”
The man smiled. “You took my rank, Vorenus. You and that big bastard Pullo, with your nonsense charge against the Nervii in Gaul.” His eyes sparkled as his voice took on a formal tone and he stepped back into even rank with his fellows. “You’re under arrest by order of the Imperator of Rome, Octavian, son of the god Caesar. Surrender your arms.”
“Galbus,” Vorenus started to say, “We need—”
“Surrender your arms,” Galbus said again.
The rest of the legionnaires came to dangerous attention, and Vorenus felt the threat of the spear points and blades. He felt, too, the tension in Khenti; the Egyptian, he was sure, was going to attack. He was also sure that they’d both be dead in seconds if he did. Not knowing what else to do, he reached slowly for the belt holding his gladius and unbuckled it. “Do as they say,” he said to Khenti.
Khenti did so at once, unlimbering the swoop-bladed sword at his own side and slipping a short, hiltless dagger out from behind his back. At a nod from Galbus, two legionnaires came forward and collected the weapons.
“Good,” Galbus said, voice satisfied. “Come, Vorenus. You’ve an audience with the judge of Rome.”