The Shards of Heaven (20 page)

Coughing the air out again, he shook his doubts away and started to walk once more up the hill. It wasn't his duty to question, he reminded himself. It was his duty to obey.

It was just death, after all.

*   *   *

Antony's pavilion had more in common with a Roman villa than it did with the ragged tents that most of his men—eight men crowded to a shelter—had made their homes these months. The general's quarters were solidly built: the cloth walls were framed square and taut with wooden bracing, the roof was tall and peaked by thick, stable poles crowned with flags that tonight hung unmoving in the still air, and the floor they encased was planked, perhaps the most rare but welcome of luxuries in an army camp.

The tendrils of smoke drifting from the roof venting and the slivers of light pooling out through gaps in the tent's heavy sheets of cloth hinted at the brightness of the interior, so Vorenus squinted his eyes as he approached. Aside from the many lamps that would no doubt be lit within the tent, after all, he knew the light would be amplified by reflections from the gilded furnishings and other signs of opulence befitting the de facto throne room of Antony and the queen of Egypt. Sure enough, when the legionnaires on guard pulled aside the entrance flaps to admit Vorenus, he seemed for a moment to be stepping into the sun itself as he blinked away the shock of leaving night for bright noontime day. Only through the practiced steps of memory was he able to negotiate stepping up onto the wooden floor and out of the way of the quickly closed flaps without stumbling or running into the legionnaire guards posted just inside.

As the interior slowly contrasted out of the light, Vorenus saw with relief that he was not the last to arrive. Insteius and Caius Sosius were already there, standing over a table in the center of the room on which was spread a rolled-out map of Actium and the positions of the various forces on either side, but the third of their remaining Roman commanders, Delius, had not yet arrived. Neither had Antony nor Cleopatra graced them with their own presences.

Not comfortable enough to approach the map table, and knowing it would tell him little he did not already know about the enemy that had enveloped them, Vorenus made his way across the rug-covered planks to a triumphal-weapons rack beneath a decorative legionary standard. Insteius acknowledged him with a curt nod, but the two generals otherwise ignored him, whispering over the map.

Vorenus abruptly realized that at least some of the lamp oil burning in the room must be scented: the stench of decay was only just perceptible beyond a sweeter smell that reminded him of distant spring, of flowers and the memory of meadows.

The flaps moved again and a half-dozen lesser commanders, men he was certain would stay silent as flies on the wall through the meeting, entered and took up places on the opposite wall, trying to look self-assured. New to their positions of rank, Vorenus knew. Death and desertion tended to do that to an army.

Behind them, to his delight, came Titus Pullo, who was forced to duck low to step through into the light. The big man blinked once, twice, and then caught sight of Vorenus. He smiled—as only Pullo could in such conditions—and walked over to join his old friend.

“So,” Vorenus said, “you finally straightened out the watch, did you?”

“Had to knock a few heads together. But it's settled now—for all the good it'll do.”

Vorenus nodded. They both knew the watch was little more than a formality, really. Octavian was content to let starvation and disease take a toll far worse than his legionnaires could manage. The men knew it, too, and they had grown increasingly hostile to standing guard through the night. But duty was duty. Even when it made no sense.

“Vorenus?”

“Hmm?” Vorenus blinked up at his friend. “Sorry, I was thinking about something.”

“I asked if you'd seen Antony and Cleopatra,” Pullo repeated.

“I suspect they're still in back,” Vorenus said, motioning to the cloth drapes that led out to the sleeping quarters the two shared. “Probably waiting to make an entrance.”

“Glad I'm not too late, then,” Pullo said. He was still smiling, but it was a grim expression, and there was a deep tiredness in his eyes.

They were simply too old for this, Vorenus knew. A couple of weathered men, far beyond their usefulness. It had been almost three decades since they'd sworn allegiance to the eagles of the legions. How was it that they were now fighting men who were children back when the two of them were hacking apart the barbarians alongside Julius Caesar? And how was it that they were fighting a son of Caesar? What had become of the world? It was like he'd fallen asleep one day and awoken in a different life.

The flaps at the entrance shifted again, and the last of the remaining generals, Delius, stepped through. He was wearing his full armor of breastplate and greaves, all neatly shined and gleaming in the lamplight. In the crook of his arm he held his formal bronze helm, its horsehair mane neatly combed for presentation. He took in the room slowly, barely betraying sensitivity to the stark light, before he strode up to the map table and set the fresh-polished helm upon it. Face hard, he leaned forward to stare at the maps before he whispered something to his two colleagues. Vorenus saw in their faces a hint of displeasure despite their efforts to remain calm.

“It's true, then,” Pullo whispered.

“What's true?”

“Walking here I heard a rumor that another of the magistrates failed to report for duty.”

Vorenus frowned. “That leaves three?”

“Aye,” Pullo said.

The sound of movement from within the bedchambers ceased the whispers in the room, and the guarding legionnaires reached out to pull aside the cloth doorway for the general. Antony, too impatient for such things, pushed through ahead of them, leaving the men grasping at the folds to keep them from falling back on the graceful Cleopatra, who glided straight-backed into the room in the wake of his pounding strides. Unlike the queen's, Antony's face was easily read: his cheeks were flushed with anger and frustration—perhaps, too, with wine—and his eyes flashed like a caged tiger's despite the circles beneath them. The men in the room snapped to attention, saluting crisply as he settled into the heavy chair one step above the floor. “Reports,” he commanded.

Insteius and Caius Sosius exchanged glances before looking to Delius, but the third commander didn't acknowledge them. He was staring, features taut, as Cleopatra moved around to stand behind Antony's chair, her hips swaying beneath her fine linens and her wrists twisting to clink the ornate bracelets that wound around them like thin gold snakes.

Insteius swallowed hard before bringing his full attention to Antony. “My lord,” he said, “Delius brings word that another consular magistrate has failed to report. We've only three remaining.”

Antony didn't blink. “Malaria?”

Insteius shook his head. “No, my lord. He's gone to Octavian.”

Defection had been occurring in massive numbers in the past week as men from all levels of the army went to Octavian's side. One more reason he was content to wait them out. The loss of any man was difficult for a commander, Vorenus knew, but losing a high-ranking man like a consular magistrate was a heavy blow indeed.

“The cause of this treachery?” Antony asked.

Insteius started to say something, but his jaw froze. Instead, it was Delius who spoke out, his voice strong and firm, coldly impassive. “You've asked the men to fight the son of a god for an Egyptian sorceress. Or so such men are saying,” he added.

Antony's face darkened with blood, his eyes burning even more fiercely as he glared at Delius. “A sorceress, you say?”

“
They
say, my lord,” Delius replied evenly. “I …
we
 … believe that the queen's presence is, more than any other, the cause of the defections.”

Cords were twitching in Antony's neck, and the muscles of his arms and legs seemed to be bunching as if he intended to throw himself down on his commanders, to throttle them with his bare hands. Before he could move, however, the long smooth fingers of Cleopatra draped over his shoulder, gently restraining him to his chair. “They believe a woman on the battlefield is”—her painted lips parted sensuously, seemed to work around the word in Latin that she was searching for—“improper?”

Vorenus noted that Insteius and Caius Sosius seemed embarrassed to look at the queen. Delius, however, remained as he was: proud in his armor, eyes firm and certain. “Yes, my lady.
Improper
is the word. War is man's work.”

“War is man's work,” Cleopatra said. She stepped around Antony and paced back and forth before the men. Vorenus, watching her sinuous movements, was reminded of something, though at the moment he couldn't place the image. “Do the men not realize their work would be difficult without the weapons they need to slay their enemies, the armor to deter their foes, the ships to bring them to their destination? Or is it that they have forgotten that all these things are bought with Egypt's coin?
My
coin?”

“Begging my lord's pardon, I think the men know all too well the influence of the queen of Egypt.”

“The influence?” Antony rose, his temper ready to break again, but Cleopatra, passing before him, quelled him with a smile and brush of her fingertips across his wide chest.

“Yes, my love. They fear I've seized power over you. That you're not yourself. That I'm a … sorceress, was it? Yes. A sorceress. And you, dear Antony, are subject to my spell.” There was a dangerous undercurrent to the mirth in her voice, the seductive smile on her face.

A snake, Vorenus suddenly realized. She reminded him of a beautiful but deadly snake.

“It matters not, of course,” Cleopatra continued. She'd returned to her place behind Antony, who'd calmed enough to sit back down. “Lost men are lost. What matters now is tomorrow. Does it not, Delius?”

“The lady speaks true,” Delius said. He looked back down to the maps on the table. “We can wait no longer. Between disease and defection, the time to act is now. We should begin our withdrawal south, fighting through Agrippa's men on land as best we can. We'll lose men, but without—”

“No,” Antony interrupted.

Delius blinked, his focus still on the map. Insteius and Caius Sosius appeared unsure where to look among the polished figure of their colleague, the seething general on his throne, and the slyly smiling queen behind it. In the end, Vorenus observed, they opted to look at each other. The lesser leadership in the tent tried to fade into the background of the cloth walls. Pullo just stared, looking tired.

“My lord, we cannot stay,” Delius said. “Each day Octavian's opportunities grow. We didn't strike when we first had the chance here. We didn't retreat when it was clear all advantage to this position was lost. We cannot stay now.”

“I agree,” Antony said.

Delius looked up, something like hope on his face. “Well, since we cannot push north through Octavian's force—not now, not after these months of loss and entrenchment—we have no option but to move south and—”

“There,” Antony said, cutting him off. “That's where you're wrong. We do have another option.” He stood and barreled down to the maps, thrusting a thick finger into the sea just west of their position.

All three of his commanders were around the table now, staring. Cleopatra, too, had come down to the table and was resting her right hand between Antony's shoulder blades, her fingertips reaching up to spiral in the ends of his curly hair. Delius shook his head slowly, disbelievingly, but it was Insteius who spoke. “With the disease and the … losses, my lord, we cannot outfit many of our ships. And even at full complement, we are outnumbered against Octavian on the water. Our men are tired and hungry, his rested and full.”

Insteius didn't say it, but Vorenus was certain that he was also thinking about the same additional fact they all had in mind: Octavian had Agrippa commanding his navy, the greatest admiral in Rome. Antony, on the other hand, was a man for the land, not the sea.

Antony at last released his finger from the table. “You would have us retreat by land?”

“Yes,” Delius said. “We would. All of us. South out of Actium. The army Agrippa landed is small and scattered. Enough to cut supplies, but not to stop the full might of this army, even hobbled as it is. We push south out of Actium, down the coastline—”

“And leave my ships here to rot?” Cleopatra asked. “My treasury for the plunder of that cold fish Octavian?”

“There's no retreat by sea, my lord,” Delius said to Antony, ignoring Cleopatra. His finger traced the coastline extending west away from the base of the Actium Peninsula, on which their main camp was situated, resting finally on Leucas, an island separated from the mainland of Greece by a sliver of water shallow enough to be forded on foot during low tide. Vorenus had looked out to the island often these months, wishing Didymus had been around to see it: his old friend had a profound interest in Homer, and it was rumored that Leucas had been the Ithaca to which Odysseus so long sought to return. “The wind is running north to south this time of year. So any flight by sea means rowing west, right through Octavian and Agrippa's navy, right through the teeth of it, all the way out west of the island. Only then could we raise sail and escape. Better to go south by land.”

“Go south,” Antony said. “To where?”

“To fight another day,” Insteius said.

“No.” Antony shook his head firmly. “To die another day, someplace else. Without Cleopatra's ships our only hope would be to run our way out of Greece. And even if we manage it, where do we run? Through Thrace? Across the Bosporus and Bithynia, Cappadocia and Syria? And what will remain of Alexandria when we return, panting and sweating after our rather long run?”