Keeper of the Flame Page 6

  His eyes darted left and right, with the watchful awareness of an able commander. He yelled to several soldiers, who snapped to the troublemakers he indicated, and directed his men from an island of complete control. Not one movement or word was wasted. Sophia fought the wave of people and stayed rooted to the ground, struggling to watch.

  All around her violence surged. An elbow shot out from the crowd, caught Sophia on the lip, and knocked her head back. She righted herself, licked her lip, and tasted blood. For the first time she felt fear. Why had she come to the city?

  The mob parted again and she saw Bellus, as through a tunnel. He turned toward her in that moment, and she imagined that he saw her too. That he recognized her. That the slight but sudden tilt of his head came from surprise.

  And then both Bellus and the sun were blocked out by the towering presence of two Roman soldiers. One of them poked at her shoulder with the tip of his pilum. Sweat ran from his forehead. “Move along, fool!”

  Sophia swatted the shaft away like an irritating gnat, and the other soldier tried to grab her.

  “Keep your savage hands off me!”

  The riot seemed to fall away then, and Sophia saw the pilum rise slowly above her, saw its wooden shaft and iron point bisect the cloudless blue sky, watched as it swung toward her in a beautiful, fluid arc.

  She closed her eyes to wait for the blow.

  Seven

  As the mood of the Alexandrians grew taut and snapped, Lucius Aurelius Bellus cursed the soldier who had commanded this centuria before him. The man must have had a lust for blood that he ingrained in his men, a passion to crush the opposition with brutality, unthinking of strategy that might prevent losses on both sides.

  Bellus shouted orders to his men to surround and subdue with as little bloodshed as possible. This they interpreted to mean they should batter every vocal citizen to the ground.

  It should never have come to this.

  “Close up! Tighten left!” The ranks turned and reformed.

  But it was too far gone. The streets swelled with the frenzied mob, and his men had tasted blood. One young soldier swept alongside him, the red-smeared blade of his gladius swinging in wide, chopping strokes.

  Bellus yelled, the boy turned, and Bellus saw the battle rage in his eye, a look he knew well from both sides. In a flash, he was back in the fields of Gaul, thick in the fray. Blood and sweat and spittle flying. Gladius thrusting, thrusting. Distinguishing himself, achieving rank.

  He shook himself back to the present, fighting the same fury that devoured the young soldier. Alexandria was not Gaul, and these citizens were not enemy soldiers.

  “First Sixth! Hold only!” His voice barely rose above the din. He swept his own pilum in front of him, clearing a space from which to survey the actions of the ranks.

  A channel opened up, and he bore down into it. Ahead, one figure refused to submit to the soldier telling him to move. Bellus lifted his eyes to the man’s face, then caught his breath.

  Her again.

  Dressed as a man, as she had been when they met in that cursed lighthouse. With her hair clipped in the fashion of men, it was an easy mistake.

  The soldier beside her yelled once more, but her eyes were on Bellus and she seemed not to hear. He saw the soldier’s pilum heft above the woman’s head.

  Bellus rushed forward, yelled at the soldier to stay his thrust.

  The shaft sliced the air. The woman closed her eyes. Bellus jabbed his leather-covered arm above her head and took the weight of it against his forearm.

  He heard the crack. Years of experience told him the bone had not broken. He hissed at his soldier. “Use your weapons on dangerous men, not harmless women!”

  The soldier’s eyes widened at his centurion’s chastisement. He backed away, into the mob.

  Bellus stepped close to the woman, shielded her with his body, and let the battle storm around them. “You should not be here.”

  She turned her face up to his. She was not beautiful, not at all. She wore only a white himation, and her short, dark hair was threaded with white. He guessed they were roughly the same age. And you have seen your share of battles, too, I can see.

  No, she was not beautiful. But she had the most intense eyes he had ever seen, eyes like polished black granite, with flecks of light that hinted at depth. The sounds of the fighting faded for a moment as he looked at those eyes. “Go back to your lighthouse . . .” What was her name? “Sophia.”

  She spoke to him then. Her voice low and strong, carrying to him in spite of the battle din. “I do not take orders from Romans.”

  Impulsively he slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her through the crowd. It took her only a few moments to loosen his grip and flash those dark eyes. “How dare you!” Her lips curled into a snarl. “This is not your city, and I am not your subject.”

  “You are going to be a dead free woman in a few minutes if you do not get out!”

  She bore down on him with her steely glare. “I thought the Romans were famous for their warfare. And yet you cannot control a small crowd of angry citizens?”

  Bellus huffed his frustration and shook a fist. “You Greeks have too many opinions. Go home, Sophia!”

  And then a cluster of men with sticks came between them, and she was gone.

  Bellus turned his attention to his command again. He had been distracted too long.

  The mob had pushed as far as the palace gardens. Bellus fought a spark of panic. He had not thought it possible that they could storm the palace.

  He gestured to his signifer, who carried the spear shaft of his standard, decorated with medallions and the open hand of soldier loyalty. The signifer crossed toward the palace, and Bellus nodded to the cornicen to blow the lion-headed horn that curled around his body, to alert the troops to a change of position. The trumpet blared.

  Under his command, his centuria redoubled their efforts to push the people back.

  The second cohort arrived, summoned from the south of the city. They advanced from behind the mob in the testudo, their shields locked to form a roof and wall as they marched to a steady drumbeat.

  In the palace garden, the boy-king Ptolemy stood atop a stone sphinx and shouted. “Kill the Roman savages! Cleopatra has allied with the Roman savages!”

  But with the two cohorts behind and Bellus’s centuria blocking the entrance, the violence began to abate.

  Ptolemy’s senseless rant continued. He yelled from his perch, instructing all to strike down the soldiers, who were better armed and better trained than they.

  Before the sun had reached its zenith in the sky, the two Roman cohorts had formed ranks before the palace, and the streets were empty of citizens, except those who lay dead or moaning at their feet. Ptolemy was removed to the palace interior, under guard.

  Bellus stalked along his ranks, alternately praising and criticizing his men. A shout went up from them, and he turned to see Caesar at an open palace window, one hand raised in triumph. He called something, but Bellus was too far to hear.

  A twinge of anxiety stirred in his gut. Though they had prevailed, the riot should never have occurred. As the centurion tasked with keeping the peace on palace grounds, he bore the responsibility—as he would bear the condemnation.

  He did not have long to wait. Before he had finished dismissing part of his men and assigning others to stand guard around the palace, a messenger came with a summons to the palace. He finished barking orders, then crossed through the courtyard garden to the city-side entrance of the palace. He stopped to right a large terra-cotta planter that had fallen and spilled dirt and yellow flowers to the paved stones.

  One of Caesar’s personal guards led him to the chamber where the general waited. Bellus entered the room to find Caesar pacing. Not a good sign. Behind him stood a regally commanding woman.

  This could be none other than Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt.

  “Eighteen years we have fought together in the fields of Gaul, beaten the warring Belgae, crossed
the Rubicon,” Caesar said. “We’ve won battles, subdued kingdoms. And now an unruly bunch of wealthy booklovers manages to nearly assassinate me!”

  “I am—”

  Caesar raised a hand and stopped pacing. He turned flashing eyes on Bellus. “This is not the work of a Pilus Prior. You disappoint me.”

  Bellus held his tongue, a stray memory of his father intruding.

  Caesar yanked downward on his chain mail and swore. “I have done all I can to ensure the cooperation of these people.” He eyed the queen behind him. “I expect my legion to do their part.”

  Bellus’s stomach felt like lead, weighted by the justified charge of incompetence.

  Caesar resumed his pacing. “You have served me well, Bellus, in spite of your propensity to spend too much time in your books. The men respect you.”

  Thank you for that.

  “But I cannot allow common citizens to appear equally matched with the Roman legion. You understand?”

  “I understand, General.”

  Cleopatra drew alongside the general and wrapped a hand around his arm. He glanced at her, then waved Bellus away.

  “Leave me now, comrade. But you will hear from me again, and I shall decide how best to deal with your failure.”

  Bellus saluted, pivoted, and marched from the chamber. In the hall, he closed his eyes and dropped his shoulders, relieved that the confrontation was past.

  It was one of the great paradoxes of his life that as a Roman centurion, he hated conflict above all else.

  Well, perhaps not all. Failure was worse.

  Eight

  The centurion marched from her father’s chambers, and Cleopatra tried to exhale the tension of the past hour. The worst was over.

  She had allied herself with Caesar, the city had reacted as she suspected, and they had been put down. She did not share Caesar’s anger at the centurion. A little violence was never a bad thing. A few dead Alexandrians would only deter future uprisings.

  Caesar pulled from her grasp and called for a messenger. A young clerk slipped in and saluted. “Get word through the city. I will address the citizens in the theater at dusk.”

  Cleopatra spoke to his back. “They will resent the very sight of you.”

  He spun to face her, then flexed his shoulders against his armor. “This situation is not under control. It is time for the people to hear what Rome expects from Egypt.”

  Cleopatra pressed her lips together, tightening her jaw. He raised an eyebrow, as if inviting her challenge.

  “You are right,” she finally said. “But they are my people. And I will speak as well.”

  By the time the sun descended over the Eunostos Harbor, the stone-seated amphitheater in the heart of the royal quarter had filled with thousands of unsettled Alexandrians, and Cleopatra stood beside Caesar in the cool recesses of the parados, the off-stage corridor, unseen by those who sat in the half circle of seats. She smoothed the white silk of her chitôn, tucked a stray hair behind her ear, and fingered the emeralds at her throat. The restless buzz of the crowd reached into the half light of the parados, leaving her ill at ease.

  Caesar flaunted his military superiority by summoning Alexandria’s citizens to one place so soon after the riot. His tight-lipped legionaries surrounded the theater, from the lowest level of the orchestra circle to the top row of seats high above them, with hands ready at their swords.

  Caesar’s attention was not on her. He stepped out of the corridor, into the orchestra circle, to the upraised roar of the people. He wore the fringed-sleeve toga of a Roman senator this evening, not a general’s armor. The purple hem mirrored the jewel-colored sunset in the sky above the theater.

  He held one hand aloft, the other gripped the robe at his middle. The noise lessened.

  She watched him there a moment, hand upraised to the sky.

  By the gods, he was a powerful man! Confident to the point of brutality, yet charming enough to win the affection of any man or woman he chose. She breathed deeply, remembering their time together, confident that she alone held him under sway.

  “Citizens of Alexandria,” he called, and the people hushed.

  Cleopatra strode from the parados to join Caesar. She raised her head to the mass of people, their white tunics lit to an orange glow in the setting sun. The roar lifted again. She smiled and bowed, as though the shouts were those of acclamation, though she had doubts.

  She stood beside the Roman general, but not too close. Better to appear set apart, though she longed to grasp his hand and present the people with a united leadership that could encompass all the world. Before her, the people’s faces merged into a sameness. Her people, like a flock of sheep in the Nile fields, waiting to be led.

  Caesar pulled a papyrus from his belt and unrolled it. “People of Alexandria, the Republic of Rome is not your enemy. We have come to restore peace.” An angry murmur rippled through the crowd. “Listen. Listen to the last words of Ptolemy XII, who so recently ruled you.”

  Cleopatra licked her lips. Caesar had her father’s will? She had forgotten that a copy had been sent to Rome. What did he hope to accomplish?

  He read the opening statements, a reiteration of the public works erected by Ptolemy XII, the good years of agriculture for which he took credit as though he controlled the Nile’s yearly inundation.

  The people had called him Ptolemy Auletes—Ptolemy the Flute Player—a slur aimed at his penchant for leisure rather than politics. When the citizens had exiled him years earlier, and Cleopatra’s older sister Berenike claimed the throne, it had taken the might and money of Rome to restore him. Her sister was executed immediately, joining her cousin-husband whom she had ordered strangled the week after their wedding.

  Caesar continued the reading, reaching the passage that outlined Ptolemy XII’s wishes for the future of his kingdom. “ ‘My daughter Cleopatra and my son Ptolemy XIII shall rule after me, co-regents over this great land. Together they will continue the strength of Egypt, they will expand her wealth, they will care for her people.’ ”

  It went on. Father had always been verbose. Cleopatra ground her sandal into the granite stones of the orchestra circle, rolling a pebble under her toe. Caesar’s intent was clear. Her father had known that Cleopatra alone was fit to rule, but that the people would demand a king. Likewise, Caesar would not back her as sole ruler of Egypt. She must be content to have the brat on a throne beside her, as though he were her equal. The thought was like a bitter taste in her mouth. But so be it.

  Caesar dropped the will to his side and addressed the people. “Rome desires to see the civil war end, to see the brother and sister rule in peace. We do not intend to conquer this land, only to help her be strong, and to request that the debt owed to Rome be repaid.”

  He paused and scanned the crowd as though he met the eye of every citizen. Cleopatra silently praised his oratory skills. He had them hanging on each word.

  “As a gesture of goodwill,” he continued, “Rome offers the island of Cyprus to be returned to Egypt’s rule as it once was. It shall be governed by Arsinôe and the younger Ptolemy XIV.”

  The crowd cheered like they had each been given a personal gift by the man they so recently wanted to murder. Ah, politics.

  It was a strategic move, giving back Cyprus, and at the same time removing her younger sister and one of her younger brothers from Alexandria, to a place they were less likely to cause future problems.

  She readied herself to speak to the people, as Caesar had promised she could.

  “And here in Alexandria,” Caesar yelled above the din, “another brother and sister on the throne. But not brother and sister only. In the manner of true Egypt, you shall have a husband and wife on the throne. Ptolemy and Cleopatra will marry immediately!”

  Cleopatra’s stomach twisted and then surged. She stared at Caesar, who had turned a smile on her. He held out a hand and stepped aside, giving her the center of the orchestra. She swallowed, struggling to control the furious anger that churned in her
chest.

  Marry the brat? Yes, it was often done in Egypt’s past. But what of Caesar? Were they not destined to rule the world side-by-side? She would not believe that he had so soon cast her off.

  But hers was not the only objection. While the people cheered Caesar’s announcement, her brother Ptolemy leaped to the circle from where he stood near the bottom of the rows of seats.

  “A king needs no co-regent!” he yelled.

  Roman soldiers jumped to his side and dragged him from the circle.

  That was when she saw it. The wisdom of it all. The boy’s advisors had trained him well, and Ptolemy would never accept her as Egypt’s ruler. If she and Caesar hoped to retain power, they must do all they could to solidify her reign over the people. A royal marriage would bring the support of both the many thousands of Egyptians who still held to the old ways, and the Greeks who favored Ptolemy.

  A plan both brilliant and odious, and she loved Caesar as a strategist, even as she hated him as a man. She turned to face the crowd.

  “My people! You can see that Rome has nothing but Egypt’s good at heart. You can see that Gaius Julius Caesar is Egypt’s friend. While my brother’s advisors have been making the foolish decisions to assassinate the Roman Pompey and to rebel against Rome’s presence, I have been securing the friendship of this great leader.” She held a hand to Caesar, and he grasped it.

  Together they lifted their hands above their heads. A smattering of applause went up from the people.

  More. More is needed.

  “You have before you a true Ptolemy, from a long line of great rulers. I will rule from my royal heart, not from the whisperings of eunuchs and teachers. And my brother will grow into his role as king at my side.”

  From below the orchestra, Ptolemy struggled in the grasp of two soldiers but was wise enough to hold his tongue.

  “The Romans are here, citizens of Alexandria! They are a mighty people, and the world must take note. Will we make ourselves the enemy of Rome, to be trampled? Or will we work with this new power, and together build an even greater and wealthier new Egypt?”