Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [74]
At last, the shade bowed his head in assent.
“I am yours, then,” he said. “My lady.”
Chrysate smiled, fingering the carved box of ashes she held against her breasts.
“You are mine,” she repeated, and there was something rapturous in her tone. Something triumphant. “We are done with you, emperor of Rome. Octavian, is that your name? You may go to your bed.”
She gazed at Augustus steadily, until he was forced to look away.
The emperor left the room, swaying with unaccustomed wine and theriac. He could not say why he allowed himself to be dismissed from his own rooms by a witch. Perhaps Agrippa was right. There should be more soldiers, more Romans, not these unnatural things. Everything about this made him uneasy.
He made his way to his daughter’s bedchamber and stood in the doorway for a moment, his eyes filling with strange tears. He would protect Julia from all of this, these creatures in his house, this monster in his city. She moved in her sleep, pressing her rosy cheek to her pillow. What did Julia know of the powers of an emperor? What did she know of trouble?
Augustus envied her, blearily, for a moment.
He gently closed the door and walked to the next bedchamber, that of Cleopatra’s daughter, Selene. She’d been of service to him, and she might be of more. Selene was superior to his own daughter. Smarter. Perhaps Julia might learn virtue from his enemy’s child.
Augustus wavered in the corridor, uncertain, intoxicated. He was tired. So tired.
He made his way to his own bedchamber and lay upon his bed without even undressing. He shut his eyes and slept. In his dreams he walked through a fig orchard, ancient and miserable, knowing that his life had come to nothing.
In his dreams, Cleopatra came for him, as she did every night. He saw her teeth and claws.
11
The Psylli crept from the Palatine and wound his way through the wealthy alley ways of Rome, considering his position. Certainly, this came at the proper time. The Psylli tribe had fought against enslavement for centuries, and they’d won, but the Roman Empire’s power was on the rise.
If Usem served Rome and won against Rome’s enemy, he would guarantee his tribe’s independence. Still, the Psylli felt uneasy. He did not trust Augustus. The man had agreed too easily to the bargain.
What if Augustus did not want to destroy Cleopatra? What if he wanted to harness her power instead? Currently, the Psylli might work for whomever they chose, but if the Romans added Cleopatra’s strength to their arsenal, Usem suspected that the emperor would claim the Psylli tribe as his personal poison ministers.
As Usem walked, his dagger in hand, he plotted his course. The best thing would be to find the queen before they did, and take her unaware. When she was dead, he would bring them her body and claim his reward. It did not occur to him to be afraid. The wind traveled with him, kicking up straw and clay dust, dancing into windows and out again, seeking the house that was sheltering her, and the wind was an immortal defender.
The wind whispered into his ear, telling him of the things it saw in Rome, the secrets kept behind grates and up chimneys. One house had a murdered corpse beneath the floorboards. Another had a fortune stuffed into a straw pallet.
The wind entered, finally, at a narrow window and fluttered through the rooms behind the bars. It emerged, and told Usem what it had found therein. A library, filled with all the poems of Rome and Greece. The wind had browsed the pages, flicking through the vellum and papyrus, turning inks to powder and stories to dust.
A woman, said the wind. Perhaps the woman you seek. She is dead.
“Does she move?” Usem asked.
She does.
Usem’s snakes emerged to twine around his neck. The serpents looked impassively at the building, and then slithered back into the folds of his garments. The wind began to blow in earnest, swinging the laundry hanging on the lines, spinning the weather vanes on the rooftops, and sending the chickens balancing on the fences up into the air.