The Shards of Heaven (35 page)

“I hear it, too,” Vorenus said. “It sounds like—”

“Music,” Pullo said, completing his old friend's thought. “I followed a group of legionnaires to the palace, and we all heard it on the way. Seemed to be moving east from the center of the city toward the walls and Octavian's camp.”

“Who would be playing music at this hour?” Caesarion asked.

The big man shrugged. “The other men thought it an omen.”

Khenti appeared to have relaxed. He looked back at the others. “So what means this omen among Romans?”

“Antony is often likened to Dionysius, god of revelry and debauchery. God of music,” Pullo said.

Caesarion frowned. “The music leads out of town. The men think it's a sign that Dionysius has abandoned Antony?”

“Something like that,” Pullo admitted.

“Roman omens.” Khenti sniffed.

“We should keep moving,” Vorenus said. “We're only halfway to the Serapeum, and Didymus will be waiting.”

*   *   *

Despite Caesarion's assumptions, the Serapeum complex was not entirely empty. A hundred wide steps led to the hill-crowning temple, and as Caesarion and his small party approached the gate at their foot, two men melted out of the pillared shadows surrounding the barred entrance, their dark cloaks pulled close about their shoulders and hoods drawn to cast their faces into darkness. Whether they were Egyptian or Roman, Caesarion couldn't tell, but they stood with the same physical assurance that he associated with men like Khenti: effective, confident fighters. He'd never seen anyone like them at the Serapeum before.

Pullo, in the lead, drew their party to a halt a few paces from the gate and spread his arms slightly to show his own weapons. “Titus Pullo,” he said. “I'm here to see Didymus.”

One of the guards stepped forward, hooded head moving up and down them all, as if appraising them. After a few seconds he reached up his hands to pull back his hood.

“Jacob!” Caesarion said, recognizing him at once.

“Pharaoh,” Jacob replied, smiling and bowing his head slightly. “I'm glad you could come despite the late hour.”

Caesarion considered how to reply but in the end only nodded in return.

Jacob abruptly looked over them. “Were they followed?”

Caesarion and the others turned and saw six more hooded men melt out of the shadows behind them. Four of them were carrying bows of blackened wood, the fletchings of quivered arrows just visible over their shoulders. One slight man, smaller than his fellows, stood in their lead. Caesarion could only barely make out the glinting of his eyes as he shook his hooded head.

“Good,” Jacob said, turning toward the temple. “Let's get inside.”

“Is it customary to follow your invited guests?” Khenti asked. His voice was steady, not betraying whether he was angry at having been secretly followed, or whether he had known it all along.

Jacob glanced back, and his smile was grim. “Tonight it is. Come. There's only so much time.”

The gate was opened, and Jacob led them up the steps to the red-roofed acropolis, the other hooded figures surrounding them as they climbed into the cool night air. At the top of the stairs they passed through a four-columned portico in the thick, high walls that surrounded the temple proper. Their path between the pillars and altars scattered through the main space of the temple was illuminated by a line of lit oil lamps. The priests of Serapis that Caesarion was accustomed to seeing here were noticeable by their absence. There was no scuffling of movement in the distance, no murmurs or chants that might reveal the stone complex for the temple that it was. Instead, there were only the steady lamps under the stars, leading the way deeper into the complex, and the closer sounds of their own passing. Jacob was in the lead, and the six men who had apparently followed them through the streets now fanned out around their little group as it moved from lamp to lamp. The slighter man whom Jacob had addressed walked to the rear of them all, close behind Khenti. All but Jacob kept their hoods drawn low over their heads and faces. Caesarion, feeling frightened and excited all at once, tried to take his cues from the two Romans and two Egyptians surrounding him, all of whom walked as if they had no worries in the world.

Back through several hallways and rooms they walked, before they reached the staircase of stone that wound down into a series of hidden passageways and entrances into the deeper catacombs carved into the rock below. Caesarion had never been into these shadowed spaces—they were the domain of the priests—and he was soon certain that he was completely lost. At last they entered a long and broad room, its walls and pillars hidden by cases filled with scrolls half visible in the dim light of the few burning lamps. A series of simple wooden tables were set in the middle of the room, most of them covered with piled manuscripts. At one sat old Didymus, two more hooded guards to either side of him. When he looked up and saw the approaching party, his face brightened despite the gloom in the room.

“Fine work, Pullo.” The scholar stood and rubbed his hands together as if to dissipate his excited energies before he came around the table to greet Caesarion. “I'm glad you could come. I was directing the fortification of the Library when they came for me. I hope they didn't startle you. They did me.”

“No,” Caesarion said, using his most diplomatic smile. “Though I do wonder what business is so urgent and secretive.”

Jacob had taken up a position near Didymus' vacated chair. For his part, the royal tutor remained beside Caesarion as Vorenus, Pullo, and the two Egyptian guards spread out around them. “But you do know why we're here, do you not?” Jacob asked. “You know so much already.”

Caesarion instinctively glanced sideways at some of the hooded guards who'd taken up positions in a rough circle around the pool of light in the center of the room. “I understand little.”

“So it is too often in life,” Jacob said. “We cannot answer all, but circumstances dictate that I answer more than we ever could.”

“Circumstances?” Didymus asked, clear expectancy in his voice.

“Octavian's siege, my dear librarian. And his impending victory.” The Jew's eyes moved to Caesarion as he spoke, and he nodded his head slightly, as if in apology. “We've waited as long as we could, hoping against hope, but we're certain that Alexandria will fall. Perhaps—in fact, likely—tomorrow.”

Caesarion didn't dispute the conclusion, much though he desired to do so. Only Antony's tactical brilliance had bought this night of freedom from the yoke of Rome. That they could count on such results again seemed too much to ask. Even if they somehow staved off Octavian's armies for another day, another night, Alexandria couldn't last. To deny it would be folly, and Caesarion prided himself on not being a foolish man. “If, as you say, my city is about to fall to its enemies, I have precious little time for games,” he said coolly. “I'm needed elsewhere.”

“You're right that there's little time,” Jacob admitted. “But nowhere are you more needed than here. We need your help, Pharaoh. More than this city and this kingdom are at stake. The world is hanging in the balance.”

“The Shards,” Didymus whispered. “I had hoped so.”

“Yes. The Shards.” Jacob's tone did not change, making clear the trust in which he held the dozen or so men in the room. “We know without doubt now that Octavian is in possession of the Second Shard. Our spies have seen it. We cannot let him acquire the First.”

“The Ark of the Covenant,” Caesarion said.

“Yes.”

“You told us you knew nothing of its whereabouts,” Didymus said.

“This is only partly true,” Jacob said. “I know that—like so many other treasures—the Ark is here in Alexandria. But I do not myself know where.”

“And you need our help finding it?” the scholar guessed.

Before Jacob could answer, Caesarion shook his head. “I don't think that's what he means,” he said. “Jacob may not know where it is, but at least one of these men here does. They don't need help finding the Ark. They need help moving it. Is that right?”

“Close,” Jacob said. “We do need your help to move it. But no man here knows where it is.” His eyes, as they did on the steps outside, raised to look past them.

Caesarion, like the others, turned to look at the slight guard who had followed them in the night. The guard's hands raised to the cloak's shadowing hood and pulled it back to reveal long dark hair tied back to frame the smiling face of an impossibly beautiful young girl, perhaps sixteen years old. Only his trained impassivity prevented Caesarion from gasping as Pullo and Shushu did. “I do,” she said.

“My sister, Hannah,” Jacob said from the table.

Vorenus cleared his throat slightly. “
You
know where it is?”

Hannah's brown eyes flashed with something like amusement.

“But you're a girl,” Pullo blurted out.

“I thank you for noticing,” Hannah said. She raised a hand to her head and shook out her hair as she walked past them to stand beside her brother. Her gait, unlike that of most of the marriageable women Caesarion knew, was easy and practical, not one of seduction. “The prophetess Deborah was a girl, too,” Hannah said. She swept back her cloak from her hip, revealing the black hilt of a blade. “It was she who inspired Barak to fight back against the Canaanites. And it was Yael, the tentmaker's wife, who killed the Canaanite general Sisera and ended a war.” Caesarion thought her eyes sparkled with something more than amusement now, something more dangerous. “She took a hammer and drove a spike through his temple while he slept. Pinned him to the ground.”

Pullo's grin was genuine. “Did she now?”

Hannah nodded. Jacob laughed a little. “So they say anyway,” he said. “And if you have not learned by now, it was the queen of Sheba who established this company. It has always been led by a woman.”

Caesarion realized he was staring at Hannah and forced himself to look down at the table for a moment.

“Sheba?” Didymus asked. “In Jerusalem?”

Jacob returned to his usual smile, but it was his sister who answered. “We do not have time for history lessons,” she said. Her attention turned to Caesarion. “The Ark must be moved. It cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of Octavian—especially when he already controls the Trident. You must help us.”

Caesarion closed his eyes, trying to focus against the tide of questions that threatened to engulf him. Octavian was at the gates. His forces were repulsed, but within hours they would be re-gathered and ready for what would undoubtedly be the final assault. Antony was gone—perhaps dead, he thought with a shudder—so where did his own duty lie? Surely it was not here in this place. Surely it was not talking of stories of the lost treasures of angels. No, his duty was to Alexandria. His duty was to his family. He should turn and run back to the palace, to protect the children. That was where he belonged, was it not?

And yet, if the stories were true, if the Shards were real, what could be more important than protecting them? The power of the gods was worth a hundred Alexandrias, a thousand. Vorenus believed he had seen the result of the Trident of Poseidon. But did that make it all true? Was that enough to let go of all that he owed to this city?

“Tell me all of it,” he said. “You tell us that there isn't time enough for history lessons. I tell you that without them you'll get nothing from me. I need to know. I need to believe.”

“We have killed men for knowing far less than you already know,” Hannah said.

Caesarion felt his companions all move slightly closer to him, but his eyes never left those of the girl. “You didn't bring me here to hurt me. You brought me here because you have no other choice. You brought me here because you need me.”

Hannah was staring at him, her eyes intense in the lamplight. She was beautiful, but she was deadly. He did not doubt for a minute that she had indeed ordered the deaths of men to protect the secrets of the Ark. At the same time, he knew with equal certainty that she needed them. She needed
him
. What he had that would help them remove the Ark, he did not know, but their desperation was clear.

“We don't have time,” Jacob said to his sister. For once, he wasn't smiling.

Vorenus seemed to have sensed the same thing that Caesarion did. “I don't think you have a choice.”

“It seems we do not,” Hannah said. Her gaze did not leave Caesarion. “But every minute here is a minute that Octavian grows closer.”

“Best to talk quickly, then,” Caesarion replied.

Hannah turned and nodded to Jacob, who sighed. “You know the truth of what the Ark is—that it's the first of the Shards that fell when the Vested gave up their souls, their free will, in an effort to bring the divine Creator back into the world. You know the threat it can be. What else do you need to know?”

Caesarion let out a breath of his own and turned to Didymus. “Satisfy him and you'll satisfy me.”

The scholar blinked back and forth between the people in the room. He had the look of a man screwing up his courage. At last, it seemed, his curiosity got the better of him. “How did it get here? How did the queen of Sheba come to protect it?”

Jacob nodded, thought for a couple seconds. “You know that the man we Jews know as Moses was the crown prince of Egypt before his belief in the one God drew him into conflict with his father, the pharaoh. You know he acquired both the Trident and the Ark, that he took them to the land promised to him by God. What you may not know is that one of his descendants in Judea was a ruler named Solomon, and that some nine centuries ago he was visited by one of Thutmose's descendants in Sheba, a queen who sought after the fate of the Second Shard. She discovered that Solomon had built a great Temple to house the Ark, and that a cult had been built up around the two Shards. Not satisfied of their security, but reluctant to part with them, the queen of Sheba left behind in Jerusalem a family sworn to protect the Shards whatever the cost. Maintained in secret, this family would pass the knowledge of the truth of the Shards from one generation to another and never cease in its sacred duties to protect them. The queen's visit, and her decision to establish this company, could not have been better timed. Before even two generations had passed, Pharaoh Shoshenq invaded Judah, followed by more attacks against Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple. The family protected the Shards through it all.”