Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [146]
Since they had seen their mother captured in the arena, Alexander had lost hope. Still, they prayed for her. They prayed for their father. They had seen him, too. Somehow, their parents, who had been dead, were in Rome. Alexander promised Ptolemy that their parents would come for them. He promised Ptolemy that they would not die here.
He was not so sure of this himself. They were imprisoned. He could think of no reason for it, beyond that they had somehow become enemies of Rome. He spent his days and nights thinking of a means of escape. They could go back to Egypt. They could hide there, in Alexandria, until they were grown enough to do something. Then, he would try to make things right. He should never have trusted the emperor. Should never have marched in the triumph.
They heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside, and Alexander stiffened.
The door opened, and it was his mother, looking just as she always had. She put a finger to her lips to bid them be silent, but Ptolemy could not. He leapt up and ran into Cleopatra’s arms, already crying her name.
Alexander Helios stayed on the pallet. There was something about her that made him suspicious. He could not tell what it was.
“Who are you?” he asked, calling his brother back. “I don’t know you.”
“How can you say that?” the woman asked. “How can you not recognize your own mother?”
Alexander saw, in that moment, her eyes flash with a strange green glow. He saw her skin, shriveled. An impersonation. She clutched Ptolemy to her breast, and over the little boy’s head she smiled viciously at Alexander.
He had no choice but to go with her. He stood, pretending he believed her to be his mother. He had no idea what else to do. All he could do was follow Chrysate as she made her way out of the silver room, his brother clenched in her arms.
“Where are you taking us?” he asked, trying to keep his voice natural.
“I am taking you home,” Chrysate answered. “I am taking you to your family.”
21
The earth shook with the marching of legions, all moving toward Avernus. Messengers flew, whispering to centurions, whispering to generals, passing written instructions along with well-embroidered rumors. Horses, frothing, fell at the roadsides, shying at the strange snakes that coursed over the roads even in daylight. Their riders leapt off and ran on. Men marched onward, sweating and burning in the heat of summer’s end, their armor heavy, their swords sheathed and sharpened, their feet beating a deep track into the dust.
Usem rode unsaddled, his coral ornaments polished. His dagger gleamed, its metal darker and stranger than anything the Romans had seen before. All who looked on him felt uneasy. The man’s skin shone in the sun, and nothing about him was Roman. He wore something about his shoulders that sometimes was a leopard skin and sometimes was the night sky, and beside him, around him, a tornado traveled, cooling nothing.
The legionaries watched Usem talking with the whirlwind, heard her talking back to him, whispers carried on the breeze, pouring into their ears and eyes. The snake sorcerer rode beside the emperor, protecting him from unknown enemies, and the Romans, in spite of themselves, feared him.
With Usem and Augustus rode the emperor’s historian, his armor rattling and ill-fitting. The soldiers had expected Nicolaus to perform the role of a poet, reciting words of war at night, singing songs of courage by day. Instead, the Damascene was silent, and this made the Romans even more nervous than they already were.
Their commander, Marcus Agrippa, wore bandages around his calf, and his face showed pain as he rode. Those who served nearest him saw him unwinding his bandages and redressing his wound, and they reported that it festered, hot and red, unhealing. He would not let servants touch it.
Only Augustus seemed himself, though his eyes were bright with fever. He rode ferociously up and down the lines of marching