Stertinius saluted, and Vorenus gladly returned it. The Egyptians began to lead them toward the barrack lodgings. Laenas tarried for a moment, fiddling with a buckle on his bags, before he moved slowly after his companion. There was something odd about the scarred man, Vorenus thought, something discomforting. Something that made him glad he wouldn’t be attending the council.
Didymus had been watching with a surprised look on his face, as if only now noticing the messengers. “I didn’t intend to interrupt,” the scholar said. “Though I actually was hoping to run into you.”
Vorenus squinted against the red light of the setting sun, eyeing the receding backs of the Romans. “It’s fine, my friend. Messengers from Rome.”
The words brought the librarian up short. “From … Rome?”
Vorenus nodded.
“How much time?”
The scholar’s vagueness helped stir Vorenus from his suspicions, and he turned to face his friend. “Until council?”
“No, no. Even lost among my books I’ve heard the rumors of war. How much time do we have?”
Vorenus knew well that Didymus had few enough friends, keeping to himself either in his rooms at the palace or lost amid the countless rows and stacks of scrolls and books in the ten halls of the city’s fabled Library. It surprised him, then, that the scholar would know anything of the war whispers. “And where do you hear such rumors?”
Didymus sighed. “Our young master, actually,” he said. “Before we began our reading session this morning.”
Of course. Cleopatra knew only too well about the swirling whispers, and she’d surely told Caesarion as part of her recent efforts to involve the young pharaoh more heavily in the affairs of state. Caesarion had been co-regent only in name for so long that it was hard for Vorenus to remember how that relationship, too, was changing. “I’ll need to suggest he be less loose with his tongue to nonmilitary personnel,” Vorenus said. He started walking toward the columned hall of the palace, away from the bustle of the yard. “No offense implied.”
“And none taken,” Didymus said with a slight chuckle as he walked alongside. “I’ve no business in such affairs. Though I do have an interest, as you might imagine.”
“As do we all,” Vorenus agreed. “The rumors are worrisome.”
“And?”
Vorenus took his time thinking about how to answer. If the coming news was as he feared, it would be known all over Alexandria soon enough, despite any attempts to keep the information controlled. “There’s no doubt Octavian’s forces are moving,” he said when they reached the white stone steps of the palace and started to climb them. “They’ve been making small, fact-finding strikes at Antony’s territories in the north. If the war hasn’t already begun, it will soon.”
They stopped walking when they reached one of the broad, swept walkways that ringed the palace hall. Servants, guards, and even a few early members of the council were starting to make their way inside, passing between the sharp shadows of the tall pillars and the brightly painted statues of god-men that framed its facade. “Do you think we can win?” Didymus asked quietly.
“Antony has almost half of Rome behind him,” Vorenus said. “Including both consuls. Much of the east remains loyal to him, including your old homeland.”
“We Greeks fear imposition. For all his unpredictability, Antony is a man who respects traditions and makes them his own, as he has here in Egypt. Octavian is a man who would make the world Rome, so to speak.”
“He is that,” Vorenus agreed. “Ruthless, ambitious, arrogant—but brilliant. We’d underestimate him at our peril.”
“You think Octavian will win.”
“I don’t know,” Vorenus said. It was the truth, even if it hurt to say it. “Between Antony and Octavian I can’t imagine what any Roman should think.”
“Difficult times,” the Greek said.
Through the open doors to the palace hall Vorenus could see Pullo, now dressed in his proper uniform, apparently trying to explain something to one of the Egyptian priests. The hulking Roman’s face was tight, his shoulders bunched up, and his gestures clipped, yet the priest was prattling on in complaint, clearly oblivious to the fact that he was arguing with a man who was surely fighting the impulse to end the exchange by picking him up and breaking him in two. Vorenus would need to relieve him soon. “You said you’d been hoping to run into me. Surely not to talk of war?”
“No, not at all,” the scholar admitted. “Just something came up in my reading with Caesarion today. Thought you might like to know about it. In case he asked.”
Vorenus thought about ending the conversation, but a glance back at the doorway revealed that Pullo was finishing up with the priest, who was still in one piece. “Something interesting?”
“We’re reading one of his father’s works, actually,” Didymus said.
“Oh?” Vorenus imagined that he knew as much of such things as Pullo did of politics.
“Caesar’s commentary on the Gallic Wars. You’re in it.”
“Well, I was in the Eleventh Legion then. We were strong in Gaul.” Vorenus’ voice swelled a little with pride. “I’d be surprised if we weren’t mentioned.”
A loud trio of court advisors, dressed in gilded opulence, passed by them. Vorenus bowed, but they gave him no notice. Didymus just smiled. “I don’t mean the legion, my Roman friend. I mean you.”
Vorenus straightened and squinted at the librarian. “Me?”
“You, Lucius Vorenus.” Didymus, still smiling, then nodded his head in the direction of the palace hall over Vorenus’ shoulder. “And our dear Pullo, too, astonishingly enough.”
“Gaul!” Pullo rumbled. “Caesar says we saved the legion, doesn’t he? Rightly so!”
Vorenus flinched, surprised by his big friend’s sudden presence. Glad for it, though. If there was going to be any talk of Gaul, Pullo was the better man for boasting. Too much of Vorenus’ memory was tainted with sorrow.
“Oh, don’t get big-headed, my friends,” Didymus said. “You’re only mentioned once. But I can say with some authority that it is far more space than most men have ever been accorded in the words of Caesar.”
“When?” Vorenus asked.
“A battle against the barbarian Nervii.”
A spark of recognition widened Vorenus’ eyes. “Didn’t know Caesar took notice of such things.”
“Sounds like few didn’t.”
Vorenus shrugged, but the growing smile on his face did not disappear. He’d always been proud of what he’d done that day, though it had been a long time since he’d thought of it.
“The two of you were really sworn enemies?” the Greek asked.
“Is that how Caesar described us?” Pullo draped a thick arm over Vorenus’ shoulders and jostled him. “No. Not enemies. Competitors, maybe.”
“Rivals for influence,” Vorenus admitted, shrugging off the bigger man’s arm. “We knew each other. Vied for honors. But I spent little of my time thinking about Titus Pullo here. I’m sure he’d say the same.”
“Caesar says you broke the lines to prove yourself the better man, Pullo.”
“Not at all,” Pullo said with a grin. “Was just impatient to get the fight done with. Had a woman back in camp who was frantic for me as a rutting sheep.”
The three men shared a laugh. To Vorenus it was like a breath of fresh air, a release from his worries over the council to come. “It actually went well for him at first,” he said. “Pullo is a beast in a fight, especially in a blind rage like that. But enough men will stop even an angry boar. The Nervii cut him off, surrounded him, wounded him.”
Didymus arched an eyebrow, clearly taking the part of the scholar. “So your enemy—your rival—impetuously charged into the enemy lines, foolishly allowed himself to be surrounded and set up for slaughter, then took what might well have been his mortal wound. Yet you went in to save him anyway?”