The Shards of Heaven (24 page)

Delius nodded once more.

“Then, no, I don't think we should engage them,” Juba said.

Lucius looked incredulous. “But they'll be even weaker than we thought! We'll have more ships, stronger men—”

“I don't think that's the boy's point,” Agrippa said, still staring at the map and ignoring Lucius' animosity. “Antony's right flank, the one he himself will command, must row against the wind to reach us. His men are already weak. The farther we make him row, the more tired they'll be. If we back off, we'll have more time to riddle his decks.”

“And have ours riddled, too,” Lucius added, frowning.

“More than that,” Juba said, feeling a growing confidence. “It's no secret that Antony's Egyptian ships are bigger, better than ours.”

Several of the commanders seemed instinctively ready to defend their Roman-built craft over those of their foreign counterparts, but Agrippa was already once again agreeing. “Without question. Say what you will about that Egyptian witch, but she's rich.”

Octavian laughed, and most of the commanders joined in, glad for the break in tension. Delius smiled, too, but noted that Octavian's ships were smaller and faster.

“Antony has raw power, we have maneuverability and endurance,” Juba said. “Let's use our advantage on sea, just as we have here on land.”

No one objected to Juba's characterization of their current strategy as a model to be followed, a silence that he took for a begrudging admission that his plan to choke Antony out had been a success. The affirmation, small though it was, gave Juba something to hold on to even as the thought of a battle on the waves—where the Trident would be most effective, most likely to be used—gnawed at his despairing soul.

“What do you think?” Octavian said abruptly, addressing Delius.

Delius was staring at Juba, who found it difficult to meet the older man's gaze. “I think you have even more strength than Antony can know,” he said.

“Ah,” said Octavian, smiling and clapping Juba suddenly on the back. “You have no idea.”

 

15

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ALEXANDRIA, 31 BCE

By the time Selene had hurried across the wide plaza where the two great streets of Alexandria met, the sun was nearing mid-morning. Whether from the warmth of its rays or her physical distance from the mausoleum and the body and armor of Alexander, the girl had managed to put the feeling of cold behind her even before she entered the sprawling complex of the Museum. A series of buildings dedicated to the Muses, the complex had been a place of wonder for Selene even before she knew about the glories of the Great Library: the complex was filled with a staggering array of theaters, temples, observatories, lecture halls, dining halls, living quarters, and a broad walkway where scholars and artists from around the world conversed as they strolled. A place where study and sculpture, song and painting came together to erupt in the flowering of human possibility, the Museum was, for a young girl of Selene's wide curiosities, a place of dreams.

And that was before she was allowed to see the Great Library.

Built of white marble and stone, the Library sat in the middle of the Museum like the physical embodiment of the flowering within the complex: a six-sided, multitiered building crowned with a magnificent cupola that was itself mounted by a gleaming gold statue of a man holding aloft a scroll, opened to the heavens. Just the sight of it stirred her soul when she was Philadelphus' age. Now that she was older and knew what was within those six walls, under that exquisite dome, she had even more cause for thrill as her feet carried her through the gardens and pathways of the grounds toward its imposing shape.

Scrolls. Such simple things. She'd laughed about it when Didymus had first told them about the Library: so much care for some papyrus harvested from Lake Mareotis, carefully prepared and rolled into long sheets, then covered with writing. So silly. But she'd soon learned the power of the knowledge in those scrolls, and in the collection in her city. The Great Library, it was said, had been started by one of Aristotle's students at the very birth of Alexandria, and it had early on incorporated Aristotle's own library. Fitting, everyone thought, given that the philosopher had been Alexander's tutor in Greece. The growing wealth of Alexandria funneled into the institution, and the generations of rulers had given the librarians as much support as they could manage. Didymus had described to her and Helios how ships entering the harbor were searched for writings of any kind, which were summarily seized and taken to a series of warehouses nearer the docks. There the scrolls were read by young scholars, and any worth adding to the collection were transferred to scriptoria, where trained scribes efficiently copied them out. Only then were the texts returned to their original owners. Thus, their Greek teacher explained, the Great Library had quickly become the largest repository of knowledge in the world, so big that its collection couldn't be housed in one building. In addition to the buildings on the docks, the city's scrolls were also held in some of the catacombs in the city and in the small library behind the walls of the royal palace on Lochias, where the children took most of their lessons. It was on hearing, during one of their lessons, that the Royal Library paled in comparison to the central collection held at the Great Library in the Museum that Selene had first demanded to be taken to see the building that loomed before her this morning. It had not disappointed then, and it would not disappoint now, she was sure.

If the Muse-inspired men and women on the grounds thought it odd to see a little girl in a slave's shawl hurrying through the Museum alone, they said nothing. And certainly Selene gave her appearance little thought until she'd entered the fountain-adorned plaza surrounding the building and was approaching the wide, pillar-framed steps of the east-facing entrance to the Great Library itself. Then, seeing the scholars of the Muses standing watch beside the heavy iron doors, she abruptly stopped walking and stood on the paved walkway under the shade of a palm, wondering how she was going to get in. They wouldn't just let some girl off the street into the Library, would they? Probably not, she decided. And if they didn't, should she tell them who she was? Or would they take her back to Antirhodos before she got a chance to see Didymus again, to find out whatever Caesarion was finding out?

“You look as astonished as I am,” said a male voice beside her.

Selene, startled from her own thoughts, turned to see a young man sitting on a bench just a few feet away, under the shade of the same tree. His body was facing toward the Library, but he'd turned his head to look over at her. He was a handsome young man, she could see, about Caesarion's age, and his smile was strikingly warm and kind. He was not, however, anyone she knew, so she hastily started to walk away.

“I'm sorry,” the young man said. “I didn't mean to scare you.”

Selene turned quickly—too quickly, in fact, as the slave's shawl slipped from her grip and fell open for a moment, exposing hints of her more luxurious linens beneath. She hastily pulled it closed, hoping he'd seen nothing. She felt safer on the grounds of the Museum than she did at Lochias, but she still didn't feel totally safe. “I'm not scared,” she said, trying to maintain her composure even as she tried not to appear too royal. It was difficult to do. Talking so close to someone, she wondered if her soft skin and fine hair would give her away, too. Why hadn't she thought of that?

The man squinted an eye at her in what seemed to her a kind of mock appraisal. “Ah,” he concluded. “I can see you're not. So you're here for the Library?”

“Yes,” she said, biting her desire to scold him about minding his own business.

“Me, too,” he said, as if she'd asked him the same question. “It's hard to work up the courage to go in there, though. I had to sit down here for a bit to think about it. And besides,” he said, glancing up at the sun, “I was early, and it's a nice day.”

“It's not that scary,” Selene said without thinking.

“Oh? You've been in there before?” He paused, then laughed a little. “What am I saying? A clever girl like you, of course you have. Lots of times, I bet.”

His accent was a little different from most of those she heard on a regular basis. Not Egyptian, certainly. But not Greek or Roman, either. Nor was his appearance easy to place in any of those cultures: he was dressed in simple, well-used traveling robes, wearing the cloth wrapping atop his head that she'd seen on some of the desert people who had made occasional calls to the court. He had the scraggly beginnings of a beard, and lightly curled locks drifted down from his temples, much longer than the rest of his hair. A strange young man, but he held himself well, Selene thought. Self-assured and satisfied. Not rich, but not poor. A bit better than common, she decided, but probably of little importance. “I've been inside a few times.” She shrugged.

The young man chewed on his lip for a moment, thinking. Then his eyes brightened. “Say, I've got an idea. You've been in there before, right? And I need a boost of confidence to get in. How about we go in together?”

“I don't think—”

The young man stood, stretching his arms high before relaxing and seeming to shake himself out with a smile. He was, Selene saw, about the same height as Caesarion. And though he didn't appear to be as strong as her half-brother, and his eyes were not the same deep brown, she thought he could pass for Caesarion's full-blood brother if he trimmed back his hair. She'd seen that kind of hair before, but she couldn't remember where. “Plus, you'll never get in alone,” he said when he was done.

“I won't?”

“Nope. You need to have business in the Library. Or be in the company of someone important. You know, like royalty or something.”

Selene felt her throat swallow. “Well,” she said, “I do have business. I'm going to see the chief librarian.”

She wouldn't have thought it possible, but the young man's face brightened even more. “Is that so? I'm here to see Didymus, too. Not to worry, though: I'll let you go first. I'm sure your business is more important than mine. Shall we?”

The young man started walking toward the Library. He didn't seem hurried, but she had to move her legs quickly to catch up.

“My name is Jacob,” he said as they walked.

“Oh,” Selene said, trying to decide whether she really should be walking with the odd young man. He seemed friendly enough, but was it proper? Then again, what if he was right about not being able to get in otherwise?

She was still mulling it over when they started mounting the wide, smooth steps. One of the scholars stopped chatting with a companion and approached them. He was a very young man, perhaps even younger than Jacob, though she found it tough to tell. Unlike the guards she was accustomed to at the palace, he seemed far more casual than deadly. “On what business?” he asked.

Jacob's smile never left him as he retrieved a folded letter from his robes. “We're here to meet with Didymus,” he said.

The scholar took the letter, started to unfold it. “From the Jewish Quarter?”

“Nearby, yes,” Jacob said.

Jewish Quarter? Selene looked over her companion again. A substantial number of Jews lived in the eastern portion of the city, said to be the largest community of them outside of their homelands to the north and east. She'd never had occasion to tour their quarter—it had built up around what once had been an eastern necropolis to rival the City of the Dead to their west—but from time to time she'd seen some of the Jewish leaders in court. They'd always been old men, speaking carefully, with long, full beards and full heads of hair. That's where she'd seen Jacob's oddly long locks of hair before, though. She just hadn't recognized him for a Jew without the long beard.

The scholar started to read Jacob's letter. “Summoned by Bronze Guts himself, eh?”

Another scholar standing guard let out a small laugh, and Jacob looked down at Selene with a quizzically arched eyebrow, but they said nothing.

The scholar looked up from the letter, then glanced to Selene. “Doesn't name two people.”

“It should,” Jacob said. “This is my—”

“Sister,” Selene blurted out.

The scholar started to say something, then appeared confused as he looked back and forth between them. “I … um…”

“In the faith,” Jacob said, still smiling, still calm. “Didymus had wanted to talk to her, too, since she's converting to the contemplative life.”

Becoming a Jew? Selene glared at Jacob, wanting to stomp his foot or order his seizure for such an improper—

“Ah, good,” the scholar said as he turned and opened the door for them. The heavy portal opened slowly, and Selene's anger washed up against her thrill at gaining entrance. She thought she could smell the scrolls already. The hundreds of thousands of scrolls. The knowledge. The power. “So, you're looking for Bronze Guts, are you?” The scholar grinned as he led the way inside. “He's popular this morning.”