Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [117]
“I will not leave you,” he whispered. “I never have. How could I?” She kissed him, feeling his hands caressing her, feeling his arms supporting her. She could forget the echoing sounds she heard, calling her back to Rome. She could forget the pain and hunger for now.
Antony was hers again, and as she lay back on the frozen grass, his lips on her throat, she knew that she would do anything to keep him safe. Snow fell above them, stars of ice disappearing as they touched the ground. The tree branches were heavy with frost, and her husband held her tightly as they made love, no space between them.
He knew what she was, and he had chosen her.
She felt the trees leaning in to cover them, and the grasses bending to offer them comfort.
The wandering spirits of Hades drifted closer, drawn by the sudden warmth, a fire lit in the midst of a wintry world. Soon, Cleopatra and Antony were surrounded by hundreds of pale shades, their eyes large and wondering, stunned that there could be love in the midst of darkness, that there could be lovers entwined so, here in the heart of the land of the dead.
At last, her sight dissolved into a thousand stars, her head falling back into the snow, her body liquid around him, and he moaned, moving faster now.
“I love you,” he said, holding her face in his hands so that he could see her eyes.
Neither of them were whole, Cleopatra knew, but they were together, and together they would petition the lord and lady of Hades.
They would try to reclaim her soul.
8
A grippa marched down the corridor to the Northern witch’s chamber, the scrap of treasonous prophecy clutched in his hand.
Nicolaus, it was signed. Agrippa had his spies, in the prisons and in the merchant houses, in the legions and even in the brothels; never mind that he himself never entered the places. One of Agrippa’s men had delivered him this shred of papyrus, claiming that the prisoner had been writing piles of the stuff.
The Damascene had finally surfaced.
He’d been arrested by Agrippa’s own men, the general discovered, on the night of the venatio, but in the chaos, no one had said anything about it.
Agrippa had searched Rome for days, seeking something stronger to fight with, forging new swords and testing new poisons, and all the while, the man who had given Cleopatra her power waited in Rome’s own dungeon.
Now Agrippa needed the assistance of the seiðkona. Auðr might not be a Roman, but she was powerful, and he knew that she was not on the same side as Chrysate. The Greek witch had told him so herself. That was enough for Agrippa at present.
His men had carried Auðr up the hillside after the battle at the Circus Maximus, and since then, she had stayed in her rooms, coughing. The doctors had been unable to do anything for her. Agrippa prayed that she had enough strength and will to help him now. He was shocked when he saw her, as limp as a rag, slumped in her chair, her cheeks sunken and her lips pale blue.
Still, she looked up at him with her fierce silver eyes and nodded. She picked up her distaff from the corner. It should have been taken from her after the battle, and Agrippa wondered how she had gained possession, why no one had reported it. She turned her distaff sideways, and looked at his arm, splinted since the battle. His ribs still pained him as well, bruised and cracked, no doubt, but nothing to be done about that. Agrippa had fought in many battles over the years, and pain followed him wherever he went.
Auðr shook her head, touched his arm, and spun the distaff briefly, and with that, the pains in his arm and chest were gone. Agrippa tried not to be amazed, but he was. He thought for a moment about what it would be like to go into battle with such a sorceress, but then he snorted. This was not the Roman way, and he would not start being something else now.
“Thank you,” he said, and that was all.
With Auðr, the general descended to the prisons.
Many of his former men cried his name as he passed, amazed that he still lived after what they’d seen in the arena. He walked past the traitors destined