Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [135]
“I am no fool,” Agrippa said. “I act to save Rome.”
“Perhaps Rome should not be saved, if you need such a weapon to save it. Only a true hero may wield the bow of Hercules, but heroes are fools, too. The venom on these arrows killed the greatest hero of the world. Hercules died screaming, begging his friends to light his funeral pyre while he still lived, and that was from only a droplet of blood mixed with the Hydra’s venom and smeared on his tunic. Do you know what happened to Philoctetes, the patron of this temple?”
“I do not,” Agrippa answered. He did not care.
“Philoctetes was the only one who dared light the pyre, and so Hercules willed the bow and quiver to him. He wounded himself in the foot with his new arrows, on a ship destined for the Trojan War. He was left on an island by his friends, and his wound festered for ten years, while he went mad with the pain. At last, his friends returned. There had been a prophecy that only those arrows could win the war. In some stories, it is said that Philoctetes was healed on the battlefield, that by the time he fired the shot that killed Paris and won the war, he was cured of his agonies. We know better. There is no cure for the Hydra’s venom, and these wounds take a long time to kill. Hercules knew this much, and he should never have saved the Hydra’s poison. I do not trust you to make a better choice than he did.”
“Trust me, then,” someone said. The voice was familiar. Agrippa turned his head, stunned, just as the priest made a strangled sound.
Blood splashed, speckling Agrippa’s robes.
Augustus stood in the window, sweating and pale, his eyes furiously bright. With him stood Nicolaus, whose mythic hopes had sent Agrippa on this doomed mission, and Usem, whose face was lit with the fire of war. He wiped the priest’s blood from his dagger. Usem looked at Agrippa and smiled.
“You should have let me join you,” he said. “Did you think I was only a sorcerer?”
“I made them bring me here. I will not stay hidden in my study any longer,” Augustus said. “I will not stay in Rome, waiting to die in my sleep.”
He swayed, the skin beneath his eyes bluish. The hand that held the sword trembled, but he was resolved.
“You must leave here,” Agrippa said. “You must not risk yourself!”
The emperor put his sword to Agrippa’s bonds and slashed them. Agrippa stood, and rubbed his wrists.
“I climbed a wall,” Augustus said, grinning suddenly, his crooked teeth lending a strangely youthful expression to his face. “I crept undetected into a fortified temple. You would not have thought I could do it, but I have! Cleopatra’s scholar acquitted himself nicely, by the way. It was kind of you to leave him with me. He rode hard beside me, though he is a scribe and poet, not a warrior. I would imagine you would do as much for me as my historian has done, would you not? Nicolaus has trusted me to save my own country. Will you do the same?”
Agrippa bowed his head.
“I will do the same,” he said, and took the priest’s walking stick from the dead man’s hand. He removed the covering that—yes—hid the suspected blade, and tested its sharpness on his finger. He tossed it to the scholar, who flinched slightly, but then gripped it. Agrippa turned the priest over and found his own knife tucked into the man’s belt. He smiled.
The priest had feared his prisoner. They were not so secure here as they seemed.
He took the priestly robe from the man’s body and threw it over himself. Augustus and Nicolaus pulled their hoods up over their heads, and Usem slipped out the window, pulling himself up onto the roof of the temple, followed by Augustus, wavering but courageous, and Nicolaus, gulping. Usem held out his hand for Agrippa, and the general took it.
The Psylli led, creeping along the roofline, bending low. He looked down into the protected courtyard of the temple, regretting all of this. The emperor was in no condition to be with him, and Nicolaus was not a soldier. Only Agrippa was a warrior, and he was still suffering the aftereffects