Her Pirate Master (13 page)

Imi simmered with impatience, but soon enough they were being rowed ashore by one of the few lightermen around, a man who resisted all attempts at conversation, frustrating Seleucus’s attempts to learn more about the situation in the city. At the wharf, there were few people about on shore, which surprised Seleucus, for Ephesians were not known to stop their commerce for anything.

“Are there stables nearby where we can rent horses?” he asked Imi. It had been a couple years since he had been to Ephesus.

Imi nodded, her eyes dark and distracted.

At the stable, the horse owner confirmed their fears.

“Marc Antony’s gone off to see the Egyptian princess, and, what do you know, but all Ephesus has closed up shop and followed him,” the man said as he waved Seleucus to his horses. “Even my boys. I told them to stay here, but as soon as I turned my back, they were gone like the rest, and who knows when they’ll return? Lazy good–for–nothings!”

“Do you . . .” Imi’s voice came out high and squeaky. She cleared her throat and tried again. “What does Marc Antony want with her? With the princess?”

“Artemis curse me if I know.” The horseman shot her a shrewd look. “But it is said that he summoned her to his ship and she refused. Knew better than to leave the sanctuary. Twice the Roman went there, and twice the priests turned him away. So, today he has taken his army with him and is in a foul mood from all one hears.”

Imi gave a little cry. They had to hurry.

“I think I would stay away from the temple today, little lady,” the horseman added. “It will not be a good place for an Egyptian, especially not one connected with her.” He made a small sign, and Imi knew him for a devotee of Isis.

She inclined her head. “Thank you for the warning.”

“You will ignore it?”

“I have no choice. I would dishonor myself and my family if I let Arsinoe down in her hour of need.”

The horseman shrugged.

During their conversation, Seleucus had selected eight of the best horses. Silver exchanged hands. In minutes, the small group was thundering down the avenue that led straight into the heart of the city. Imi could have taken them around along the shoreline, but the avenue was wide and well–paved. They could make better time this way. The horse Seleucus had chosen for her was a good one, strong and powerful, and she gave him free rein. Seleucus allowed her a slight lead, but she could feel him near her flank, shadowing her.

At the Great Theatre, the riders made a sharp right and headed down the Artemisium, the road that led directly to the temple. Imi was glad the road was almost empty, because they could go faster, but her fear was a congealed lump in her chest. Her thoughts were a soundless prayer.

In front of her, on either side, stretched a row of tall cypresses, green and indifferent in the morning sun. Imi sneezed as the dust from the road rose around them. Her eyes watered. They were more than halfway to the temple now and the road began to thicken with people again. First a mere handful then swelling, so that by the time they had arrived at one of the entrances to the grand plaza in front of the temple, Imi was not surprised by the huge crowd gathered there. So many people. Ephesians had taken to the small, slight Arsinoe and had treated her and her small retinue with kindness. She was their most famous guest, but now one whose name resounded through the world had come to see her, and they wanted to bear witness to history.

Unable to go any further on horseback, Seleucus dismounted and helped her down. He and the other men tied the horses up. Seleucus tossed a coin at a nearby boy to look after them until their return. Two centurions nearby looked their way, their gaze taking them in from head to foot before they turned to each other and whispered.

“Do you see what Marc Antony has done?” Seleucus asked.

Imi rose on tiptoes to look around. There were centurions in the crowd, but she glimpsed many others on the outskirts of the plaza. Their eyes watchful, their helmets glinting in the sun.

“See, he has circled the plaza with them. It looks casual—”

“But it isn’t,” Imi finished. “I must get to my lady. She will want me.”

Seleucus nodded at his men, signaling them to follow, but at some distance, so they aroused no suspicion.

At the front of the crowd there was a collective gasp. A cry went up. “Look, the princess.” Imi craned her neck as she pushed ahead. Arsinoe had walked out from between the temple’s pillars. Three priests and two priestesses hovered anxiously around her slight form. The princess had always been slender, but the years of her exile had brought her to thinness, though she remained as graceful and lovely as ever.

The people in the plaza surged toward the temple. Seleucus grabbed Imi’s arm.

“Stay close to me,” he murmured in her ear.

Imi wanted to shout to Arsinoe that she was there, that she had the relics, but there was too much noise, so the princess would never hear her. Seleucus had come to a standstill. The crowd was so thick he couldn’t pass. Imi could have wept with frustration. A hush fell over the crowd. Imi craned her head and saw a tall man in Roman armor mounting the temple steps.

“Marc Antony,” Seleucus said.

“I must . . .” She tried to push between two solidly built women in the rich robes of merchant’s wives.

“No, wait.” Seleucus pulled her back. “Listen.”

“Daughter of Ptolemy,” Marc Antony was saying. He had a harsh voice that carried easily.

Arsinoe inclined her head. As the rightful queen of Egypt, she was also the incarnation of the goddess on Earth and need make obeisance to no one. Even the humiliation she had suffered in Rome had not robbed her of her natural dignity.

“In the name of the Great Mother, I greet you, Marc Antony.” Her own voice was high and light, but he had reached her now and she had to tilt her head to look up at him. Imi was awed by how the Roman towered over Arsinoe, who seemed even more frail and vulnerable by contrast.

“It is claimed that you still conspire to overthrow the queen of Egypt.” The crowd murmured. Imi heard a man say to another “his whore” but he said it quietly, turning his body so that no centurion could hear him.

“How can that be so?” Arsinoe asked, her voice tinged with contempt and disdain.

“You deny it?”

“Of course I deny it. How can I look to my own overthrow?” Her eyes ranged over the crowd.

“What?” Marc Antony was clearly confused, and Imi thought of what she’d heard of him, that he was not the quickest of men, but loyal and honorable according to his own lights.

“I am the queen of Egypt,” Arsinoe said, her tone triumphant. The crowd cheered and clapped their support for her.

“I, and no other.” The cheers got louder, and she raised her voice to be heard. “The whore who sits on it now is the usurper. I am the anointed of the gods of Egypt. Join me, Marc Antony. Join me, and you will not regret it.” Tears stung Imi’s eyes. She had never been prouder of her mistress than she was at that moment.

Marc Antony stared at Arsinoe, and, for a moment, he seemed sad.

“You will not renounce your claim to the throne of the United Lands?”

“I cannot, for the goddess, the Mother of Egypt herself, chose me.”

“It is for you to choose. Do you renounce your claim and pledge to live in peace with your royal sister?”

“Cleopatra chose war. She took my throne and my kingdom. Mine by right. Why do you not ask her to renounce the throne which she stole?”

Marc Antony passed a hand across his forehead.

“That is not for me to do,” he said patiently, as if explaining something to a child. “I ask you . . . I beg you to reconsider. Renounce your claim now and live in peace.”

Arsinoe drew herself up, her chin jutted.

“I renounce nothing,” she said but her voice broke on the last word and she stepped back as if she knew what was coming.

“By order of the queen of Egypt and by the powers vested in me, I sentence you, Arsinoe Ptolemy, to death.” He drew his sword. Imi heard a shrill, high scream, realized she was the one who’d screamed. A thunder clap sounded over the temple. In the next minute, the sun vanished. In the sudden darkness, a shaft of light shone down on the temple. It appeared to radiate from a dark–skinned woman of piercing beauty, dressed in the Egyptian style in near–transparent robes, who suddenly appeared on the steps. A great pair of wings unfolded at her shoulders, the feathers shifting in color through iridescent blues to the shade of blood.

“Isis,” breathed Imi. Beside her, Seleucus stared open–mouthed.

Almost immediately, forms flickered and wavered beside Marc Antony, materializing from the air. A stocky, clean shaven man and a statuesque woman in Roman robes. Their intent gazes were fixed on Marc Antony. His sword arm rose. Imi expected Isis to stop him, but, instead, her expression unutterably sad, she turned to Arsinoe and held her arms out. The sword descended. A gasp shot through the crowd. But even as unfeeling steel cut through tissue and bone, Arsinoe or the spirit of what had once been Arsinoe stepped forward, unscathed, and was gathered into the Egyptian goddess’s arms. They vanished, and the Roman gods with them. The sun shone out again. Marc Antony looked stunned, his mouth open, his expression incredulous. Arsinoe’s body lay awkwardly crumpled, her blood pooling around the Roman’s feet. Beside Imi, a young woman retched while another sobbed loudly.

“He’s killed her.” Another shouted: “The Roman has killed her. Blasphemy!” The people had been as still as pond water during the visitation of the gods, but now they roused themselves. It did not take them long to change the tenor of their shouts. “Get him.” Then “kill the blasphemer!”

Again, they surged forward, but Marc Antony’s centurions were suddenly there, in a protective line across the front of the temple steps. The plaza erupted in turmoil as people vented their feelings against the Roman general. Fights broke out here and there through the crowd.

A squadron of centurions hustled Marc Antony into the temple’s precincts.

“Come.” Seleucus grabbed Imi by the elbow and turned to maneuver her back through the crowd to their horses.

“No . . . I . . .” She struggled to release herself. Arsinoe was dead. How could it be? She had brought the relics. She had them with her. It was what Arsinoe had wanted. Imi had done what was asked of her. How could Arsinoe be dead? How could he have killed her? The reality of it struck her hard, and she let out a long, animal howl. If Seleucus had not picked her up right then, she would have fallen to the ground and been trampled under the feet of the maddened Ephesians. A centurion tried to block their way, but one of the pirates thrust his knife into the man’s stomach. They raced to the horses. Seleucus hauled Imi up in front of him and wheeled around to grab the reins of her horse.

“Go!” he yelled to his men. “Go!”

They galloped back to the stables.

The horse owner rushed out to them.

“What?” he asked with dread, seeing their faces.

“Arsinoe is dead, and the Ephesians are fighting the Romans.”

“Goddess.” The man’s eyes widened.

“We were never here, should anyone ask.”

The horse owner nodded, turning away from them, dismissing them from his mind, his attention now on protecting his property should the riot at the temple spread to the harbor.

In minutes, the pirates were back on their ship. They hoisted the sails in hurried silence. In the distance they could hear the tumult of the skirmish at the temple. Seleucus hoped the centurions were getting the worst of it. He glanced at Imi, who stood at the stern staring at Ephesus as the city receded behind them. She had not spoken since they’d gotten back on board, but he thought he knew some of what she was feeling.

“Imi.” He pulled her into his arms.

“Do you think if I’d gotten there quicker . . .” She turned to face him, her eyes huge and despairing. “If he’d known she had the relics in her possession . . . ? Perhaps . . . ?”

“Arsinoe was a threat to Cleopatra. She would always have been a threat as long as she lived, so she ordered Marc Antony to kill her. He knew before he asked that she would never renounce her claim.” Seleucus sighed. “I am sorry, Imi. It is politics. Marc Antony needs Cleopatra’s support if he is to conquer the East.”

“But the relics . . .”

He shook his head.

“They are important from a religious point of view, of course they are, but Cleopatra and Marc Antony are playing for very high stakes. He wouldn’t have cared if Arsinoe had possessed Osiris’s very crook and flail.”

“The goddess. I saw her; didn’t you? She was standing on the steps.”

“I saw something.” Seleucus was reluctant to commit himself. He had seen a ghostly form, but it could have been a trick of the light. It was strange, though, how dark it had gotten.

“I saw her. She was so beautiful, but she looked so sad, too.” Imi shivered. “She couldn’t stop him. His gods were behind him, and she couldn’t do anything. What does that mean, Seleucus, that the Great Mother could do nothing?”

“I don’t know, Imi,” he said, tangling his fingers in her hair, cradling her, wishing he could do something, anything, to take away her pain and confusion. “Imi, I will take you to my house.”

She frowned and reared back to watch him.

“You can live there.” The blood thundered in his ears. He wondered if she could hear it. “You will be safe,” he said, urgently. That was the most important thing to him, that she be safe. Had she been standing next to Arsinoe he had no doubt that Marc Antony’s sword would have threatened her next, and then all Hades would have broken loose because nothing, not even a legion of Roman deities, would have kept him from slicing down the general.

“Safe!” She cried. “Think you that I wish to be safe? My mistress is dead, can’t you understand?” Tears ran down her cheeks. “She’s dead. I don’t know where Lucius is or if he’s safe. What will become of him? Of all who loved and followed her? Medir. Hepset. Tetisheri. It’s over. It’s all over. Everything we wanted. She’s dead! Oh, Goddess!” The sobs wracked her body. She sucked in great gulps of air. “I loved her,” she cried into Seleucus’s chest. He stroked her hair in silence, his heart breaking. How he wished he could have taken her pain into himself and healed her hurt, but only time could do that.