Keeper of the Flame Read online

  “But Caesar has Ptolemy in his clutches. And Cleopatra rules from behind Caesar. The people have switched their allegiance—”

  Pothinus did slap him then. The slave raised a hesitant hand to his lip.

  “All of that can change in an instant, Plebo. Do not be a fool. There are many ways to incite a people to take up the cause of one ruler and destroy that of another.”

  “But the people of Alexandria want peace. They want to go on with their philosophy of the Museum, with their theater and their sciences.”

  Pothinus took a deep breath again and scowled at the sweaty odor of the men who dragged on the oars. For twenty years talk of the Museum had sickened him, since the day he had been ostracized by men who were by far his intellectual inferiors.

  Plebo was still whining. “Perhaps if you had control of the new discovery from the Museum—”

  “What discovery?” Pothinus plugged the amphorae.

  Plebo smiled, as though he had stumbled upon a treasure and was the only one to know where it lay.

  “Come on, fool, what whisperings have you heard?”

  Plebo shrugged. “Something Sosigenes has been working on.”

  “Sosigenes.” Pothinus turned away. It was the second time today he’d heard that name. Years ago, before Ptolemy XIII had been born and Pothinus had become the minister of finance, there had been a group of them. Hot-headed scholars, ready to change the world. And we would have. Could have. “What has Sosigenes discovered?”

  Plebo shrugged again. “No one seems sure, but it is rumored that he has been reconstructing the mechanism once lost—”

  Pothinus held up a hand to silence the slave. He inclined his head toward the ship’s captain and the oarsmen. “No need to give everything away, Plebo,” he muttered.

  Sosigenes. The Proginosko mechanism. Could it be?

  He thought of Sophia in the streets during the riot, pleading for the scholar’s release.

  His stomach curdled, partly in response to the sour wine and the swaying boat, and partly with a rancid ambition that had found a handle with which to turn the world. Yes, if it were true, it would change everything. Power had always been married to knowledge. With the right technology, even a eunuch could rule the world.

  Pothinus turned on Plebo. “You must find out.”

  “Find out?”

  “Exactly what Sosigenes is doing. Get word to me immediately at Pelusium.”

  “But how—”

  Pothinus grabbed Plebo’s arm. “I don’t care how, just do it!” He pulled the slave toward the prow of the ship.

  “But, I thought I was sailing—”

  “Not anymore.”

  It took little effort. One arm around the scrawny man’s waist, and one good heave, and he was over the side.

  Pothinus leaned over, watched the slave come up sputtering and yelling.

  “Careful of the pirates!” Pothinus pointed to the Pharos island, home to men who preyed on stranded ships. “And hurry!”

  They had cleared the harbor entrance now, and Pothinus turned to the Great Sea. Though the way ahead was as dark as a tomb, Pothinus felt as though a torch had been lit solely for him, guiding him to what he should do.

  Yes, I will return, Plebo. Backed with military strength and with a discovery for which the world would kill.

  Eleven

  Bellus was reading from a borrowed copy of Epicurus and finishing his morning bread and feta beside the palace harbor when Caesar’s summons came. An Egyptian slave brought it. Bellus chewed the last bit of bread, now dry as dust. He slid the papyrus beneath his chain mail and followed the slave.

  I must find a way to regain Caesar’s approval.

  They crossed through the tangle of sweet-smelling color in the gardens, past the lotus-filled reflecting pool, and under the square stone lintel. The slave led him upward, to the private chambers Caesar had claimed for his own.

  The general sat with his back to the door, a Roman in the center of Ptolemy XII’s sumptuous chamber. A barber stood behind Caesar, combing and snipping.

  “Who is that?” Caesar called.

  “Lucius Aurelius Bellus, General.” He tried to keep his voice steady and stood with shoulders back.

  “Ah, Bellus. My Pilus Prior who would rather study dead men’s scrolls than defend Rome. What would your father have said?”

  Bellus winced, remembering Caesar’s words of the night before. You disappoint me. He straightened. “The events of yesterday should never have happened, General. I regret—”

  Caesar pushed away the barber, who cowered at his touch, and swiveled in his chair. “You regret? Bellus, where is that weasel, the eunuch Pothinus?”

  Bellus stood at attention under Caesar’s gaze. His iron felt weighty against his chest. “We have not yet been able to locate—”

  “I will tell you where he is. For it seems all of Alexandria knows. At least that is what I hear from Falah here.” He stood and slapped the barber on the back. The Egyptian lowered his eyes to his blade. “He has sailed for Pelusium in the night. To join Achillas, and Ptolemy’s troops, and no doubt lead them back here to attack me.”

  Bellus inhaled and inwardly cursed this land. He had not seen such failures in all of his military career as he had since landing here.

  “It is strange to me”—Caesar brushed tiny hairs from his shoulders—“that Pothinus should have sailed from Alexandria. Because I thought I remembered giving you clear orders yesterday to find him and put him in custody.”

  From the bedchamber to his right, Bellus heard the low laughter of a woman. His hand went to his pugio.

  A tray of olives and garlic, with lentils covered in a gáron sauce, was brought by a slave. The fish sauce was a delicacy not often seen in Rome. Cleopatra emerged from the bedchamber, dressed in flowing white robes tied at her shoulders, with gold armbands wrapped around each upper arm. Her long hair swung when she walked.

  Bellus shifted his weight, shuffling his battle-worn sandals against the marble floor. He felt more like a boorish peasant than the Sextus Pilus Prior. “I will go after him, Caesar. He cannot have gotten too far ahead. I will bring the centuria and we will—”

  “You have done all I have need of in this matter, Bellus. I have often noted your propensity to be slow to act.”

  “I am careful not to shed blood without cause, General. As you know, my centuria has suffered fewer losses than any other.”

  Cleopatra brushed past him and Bellus stepped backward. She drifted to a couch and stretched herself on it.

  Caesar cleared his throat, and Bellus jerked his attention back to the general. “And yet I believe you are a bit too ‘careful,’ as you say, to shed the blood of the enemy as well.” Caesar waved a hand. “In any case, I have decided to place you elsewhere.”

  “Elsewhere, General?” Bellus felt a ridiculous desire for his shield to stand behind. Caesar’s accusations were like enemy darts.

  “It has occurred to me that the lighthouse is our most strategic location on this island. The lighthouse controls the harbor, and the harbor supplies the city. We must retain control of the harbor.” He joined Cleopatra on another couch.

  Bellus saluted. “We will post ten legionaries at each of the—”

  Caesar was shaking his head. Bellus let his plan go unfinished.

  “No, there is no need of that yet.” He reached for an olive. “Pothinus will be some time raising the troops. No, for now I simply want you to take the lighthouse.”

  “There is no enemy occupation in the lighthouse, General.”

  Caesar laughed and looked to Cleopatra. “You would be surprised.” The queen smiled, but it was a smile tinged with annoyance. “But you are correct, there is no need to take it by force. I simply want you and your centuria to station yourselves there, until I have need of you.”

  Bellus opened his mouth, then closed it again. Station ourselves there? He shifted, and the metal discs of the sporran that hung from the front of his belt clinked discordantly.


  Caesar’s attention had moved to the food and the queen.

  “Sir,” Bellus finally said, “surely you have a better use for an entire centuria than watching over a lighthouse?”

  “Think of it as some time off, Bellus.” Caesar leaned his head against the red cushions. “You could do more of that reading you’re so fond of. And perhaps the next time I have need of you, you will remember what it means to fight.”

  Bellus remained fixed before Caesar, searching for a way to refuse the shameful duty without insubordination.

  “That is all, Bellus.” Caesar turned his eyes to Cleopatra, who smiled and touched his hand. “You are dismissed.”

  Bellus saluted, pivoted, and stalked to the door.

  “Oh, and Bellus?”

  He turned.

  “Watch out for that beast who runs the lighthouse. She may be the fiercest enemy you’ve yet faced!”

  Caesar laughed at his own joke, but Bellus simply nodded and left the chamber. He marched through the palace, heedless of his surroundings.

  Lighthouse duty! He may as well been asked to tend the palace gardens. He had fought the Belgic army, led a centuria through Gaul. And now he was expected to sit in that ghastly woman’s tower and wait for Caesar to call him back from the dead?

  He found himself at the palace entrance and blinked at the morning sun that shot across the city and into the courtyard. He scanned the three-tiered wonder from bottom to top, taking in the base level that must house hundreds of rooms, the tall bottom tier with its glass windows on every side. Above the first section was a shorter, octagonal tier. He wondered what was on the platform where the second tier began. Above the octagon, the third tier was circular, and housed the apparatus that directed light outward, day and night. He had to admit a certain curiosity about how it was accomplished. From this distance he could barely make out the figure of Poseidon atop the lighthouse, his trident stretched toward the water as though he alone commanded the harbor.

  It’s a fascinating thing, to be sure. But his curiosity could be satisfied with an afternoon visit. He did not need to camp there with eighty able soldiers!

  There must be another way.

  A palace slave scurried by, water pot in hand, and he roused himself, realizing he must look strange loitering about in the gardens. Besides, there was work to be done.

  He crossed back through the palace and out to the city streets. This entire quarter of Alexandria was taken up by the line of Ptolemaic palaces that each successive Pharaoh-king had built for himself along the water.

  These kings had too much time on their hands. Egypt’s natural defenses of sea in the north and desert to the east and west had left her fat and rich, with little to do but wallow in her luxury.

  Bellus’s own centuria was housed in one of the smaller palaces, and he headed there now to raise his men. He marched through the cool marble hall to the series of chambers allocated to the soldiers.

  The men hailed him as he entered the room. “Pilus Prior Bellus!” Soldiers scrambled from mats, buckling and lacing as they found their lines. There was a solemnity among them this morning. They felt yesterday’s failures as well and desired an opportunity to make amends.

  “We have been given new orders, men.” They looked at him, expectant. He paused, his gaze taking in the faces of these men who trusted him not only in battle, but who came to him with their joys and heartaches as well. How many of them had he talked through the news of a girl who had married someone else while her soldier marched through foreign lands? He had slapped their backs upon their promotions, gripped their arms at the deaths of their parents.

  “Our new assignment—”he hesitated on the edge of decision, knowing that professional death overhung his every choice—“Our new assignment is to take the harbor.” Across the chamber chins lifted, chests expanded.

  Once committed, his words came in a rush. “By midday today, we will have set up a perimeter guard around both the Great Harbor and the Eunostos. We will take ships to the narrow entrances and drop anchor, there to examine every craft that enters and exits Alexandria. No one will get in or out without our knowledge. You may have heard that pirates infest the Pharos Island on the western side. We will need to establish immediate superiority over these thieves and beggars as well.”

  It was done. And, he knew, so was he.

  Bellus called for a meeting of the eight men of his first contubernium and sketched out his plan to them. Within the hour the centuria marched from the palace, intent on its new orders.

  Bellus watched them go, not yet ready. The heaviness in his chest would not abate. He had dared to defy Caesar the Conqueror.

  Not defy. Exercise my judgment in how best to accomplish Caesar’s goal.

  But Caesar’s reference to his father ate at him. The military hero would have never suffered yesterday’s loss, nor today’s humiliation. He prayed to the gods that his plan would restore him to Caesar’s favor.

  In his tunic lay a letter, slipped to him minutes earlier by a messenger. He pulled it out and broke the seal.

  From Valeria, back in Rome. He sighed and read, hoping she would say something to lift the weight. He read as he walked, in the direction of the harbor.

  My dearest Lucius. How I long to have you back in Rome. I have found the most beautiful fabric with which to make my wedding robes . . .

  He finished the letter. It would be unkind to leave it unread. But her words did nothing. She spoke of her clothes, of her pets, of her silly games. All the while the pressing assumption that he would marry her when he finished his military career.

  She is young. She will grow in knowledge and in spirit in the years to come.

  He told himself these things often, reminded himself a wife need not be his equal in things of the mind. A man could get his fill of discourse and study in the Forum. No need for it at home.

  He slid the letter back into his tunic and lifted his eyes to the harbor—to the lighthouse at its outer reaches.

  No more of letters or of Epicurus’s philosophy.

  It was time for action. It was time to take the harbor, just as Caesar had ordered.

  Well, almost.

  Twelve

  Sophia paced the front hall of the lighthouse’s Base, twisting her fingers together, then prying them apart and wiping her hands down the sides of her tunic.

  What was taking so long?

  She had sent Ares into the city long ago. He knew the back roads and alleys, and the people who frequented them. He could find someone for the task she required.

  Last night’s plan to have Cleopatra use her influence with Caesar had failed. Sosigenes would not be released, and if anything, Sophia had drawn more attention to the scholars and to her lighthouse than she would have wished.

  And so it was left to her to find another solution.

  She put her plan into action as soon as the sun rose, filling a sack with enough money to purchase the help of disreputable characters and passing it to Ares with whispered instructions.

  Do what you must to free him from prison. Bring him to me. Take care that no one sees you come here.

  After that she had no plan. Only to hear Sosigenes’s important news and find a way to keep him safe. She stood now at the entrance, looking over the island.

  The Base, the platform level of the lighthouse, housed over two hundred rooms in the corridors that formed a huge square at the tip of Pharos Island. In the center of the courtyard formed by the four corridors, the lighthouse itself began its ascent, with the ramp that spiraled upward. On this south side of the Base, the entrance led out to the heptastadion, and paths branched off in eastern and western directions to the small village that had been part of this island since before the time of Alexander.

  Sophia had a clear view across the island and the causeway, but she saw no sign of Ares or Sosigenes. She returned to her pacing of the South Wing. She ran her hand along the stone corridor and trailed her fingers over a wooden door that led to an unused storage room
. The dim light of the front hall did not reach into the shadowy corners of the doorway.

  Back to the entrance, to squint into the sunlight, searching the heptastadion again. Villagers came and went. Some on foot, some in two-wheeled carts pulled by mangy horses. She could hear the far-off shouts of the village below her, the village that teemed with a community of people living together and loving each other.

  To her left, the Great Harbor was fully into its business of the day. Across the blue water a golden sun-path sparkled, like a road inviting her to join the city. It seemed there were people in every direction she looked from her isolated position on the island.

  And then she saw him. Ares, cracking a whip over the back of a horse, from his place at the front of a large wooden wagon.

  Why a wagon?

  She used her hand to shield her eyes and waited for them to reach the end of the heptastadion. Her heel beat an impatient rhythm against the stones.

  Sosigenes was not with him. She prayed to the gods that he was in the wagon.

  Ares jumped from the rickety vehicle, the switch still in his hands. The horse pawed at the ground and snorted. A canvas had been stretched and tacked over the back of the vehicle, making its load a mystery. Ares searched the area around the lighthouse entrance.

  “Where is he? Did you get him out?”

  Ares nodded once. “He is here.” He inclined his head to the wagon and smiled. “And I have a surprise for you.”

  Sophia frowned and hurried to the back of the wagon. “You know I hate surprises.”

  “Not this one.” He joined her. “You’ll want to kiss me for this one, Abbas.”

  “We shall see about that.”

  A crude nail poked through the canvas into the wagon’s splintered side. She yanked the canvas away and revealed part of the wagon’s load.

  It was enough.

  Four white-haired men lay on their backs, grinning up at her.

  “Sosigenes! Archippos! Ares, what—how many of you are there?” She attempted to pull the canvas farther.