Queen of Kings - Maria Dahvana Headley [83]
Where was Cleopatra? It had been Antony’s only question in Hades, and it was his only question here. Augustus swore she was in Rome, swore she’d just left his rooms, and as Antony stood against the wall, shaking with wrath, the emperor and Agrippa had discussed their plans to trap and kill her in the Circus Maximus.
What could he do to save her? He was nothing, an echo of his former self. He had no body, no hands to pick up a sword.
Antony thought about his wife’s extraordinary resourcefulness. Long ago, in a betting game, she’d informed him that she could serve him a meal worth ten million sesterces, more expensive than any banquet that had ever graced his table.
He took the bet, scoffing, and she promptly called for a cup of vinum acer, removed one of her tremendous sea pearl earrings, and dropped it into the goblet. It dissolved, rendering the vinegar free of acid. They drank that wine together, and he laughed, awestruck at her invention.
“A glass of wine with you,” she told him, “is more valuable than anything else I possess.”
She had transformed vinegar to wine for him, no matter the price, and he would do the same for her.
It meant nothing that Antony’s hands could not hold a sword. He could still declare war against her enemies. There were many ears in Rome, and not all of them were devoted to the Boy Emperor.
Augustus thought that Antony was only a ghost, and no longer a warrior.
It was not the first time an enemy had fatally underestimated Mark Antony.
He smiled as he emerged from the Palatine and made his way down the hillside, his body nearly transparent in the afternoon sunlight.
It was not hard to find the men who had once been his soldiers. With Rome at peace, they congregated in bars and brothels, and the city was filled with them, in various phases of inebriation. Egyptian gold filled their pockets.
What would be difficult was finding men who would be loyal to him again. Most of the men Antony saw had shifted to the side of Octavian after Actium. He did not need disloyal soldiers. Antony had hoped to locate Canidius and the rest of his senior officers, the best-trained men in the army, but his lieutenant had been executed in Alexandria. Antony listened to the men sing bar songs of the bravery of Canidius Crassus. Of course his officers were dead.
He stood in the dusty street, cursing himself. He had no idea when Chrysate would wake, and when she did, his time for searching would be done.
At last he found a few men, strong and scarred, napping in the backroom of a bar. He shouted, and the men’s heads lurched up from their table. It was not the entrance he would have chosen.
“Attention!”
They blinked in the dusty air. Drunkards. Antony had been a drunkard himself on occasion. He knew how they felt, and so he made his voice all the louder.
“Defenders of Alexandria!”
The men squinted.
In a flash, Antony appeared before them, and they gasped, pushing themselves back, stumbling over chairs in their haste to escape him. He looked suspiciously at the state of their muscles. The year since Alexandria had made them fat, but this was the best he could do on short notice. If he’d had time, he might have searched throughout the world, located his true friends, found the strongest men, but he had only until tomorrow evening to save Cleopatra.
“Your commander calls on you,” he said. “Your commander charges you with action.”
“How do we know who you are?” asked one of the soldiers, his cup spilled before him.
“Do you doubt me? I am Mark Antony,” Antony said.
One of the legionaries grinned.
“You look like him, I won’t deny that,” he said. “And you sound like him. Who’s playing us for fools? Show yourself!”
Antony grimaced. Soldiers were not easy to force into sobriety, nor were they impressed by the impossible.
They would be easier to bribe than command, in this condition.
“I want to hire you,” he said. “Tomorrow night, at the Circus Maximus. You will appear there, armed, and await my signal.