The Shards of Heaven (8 page)

Juba saw the boy's eyes take in the Trident for a moment and widen a little with curiosity before he began trying to protest the departure. It was a feeble effort, though, and he allowed his mother's strong hands to lead him off. Quintus shot Juba a quick look of encouragement before he, too, bowed and hurried off in their wake, no doubt planning to help entertain and distract the boy.

The servant with the trays of food stepped forward. “Your dinner, Imperator,” he said. When the man's eyes lowered in deference to Octavian, he spotted the spilled wine at once. Juba noticed that the man swallowed hard. “My lord, was there a problem—?”

Octavian let out a quick, superficial laugh. “No, no. The wine was fine. Just an accident. Can you see to it later?” The servant nodded dumbly, clearly wondering why the Imperator would let the stain sit. “We just don't want to be disturbed right now,” Octavian said. “I'll take the food.”

There were several bows as the slave handed in a tray and a jug of water. Octavian carefully balanced it all so that no one needed to enter the room. Then, with a quiet word to the legionnaire standing guard, he closed the door.

There was another table, not far from the door, and Juba watched as his stepbrother unceremoniously emptied his arms upon it. “I assume you're not hungry, either?” he asked over his shoulder.

“No,” Juba said. “I'm fine.”

Octavian nodded, but he didn't shift from his position for perhaps a minute. Juba sat quietly, glad that someone else was lost in thought for a time.

At last, Octavian straightened up and stretched his neck from side to side, cracking it. Then he returned and sat down in his chair, his eyes on the object still set between them. “Poseidon's Trident,” he said.

“Or Neptune's, if you prefer,” Juba said. “But it's even more complicated than that.”

Octavian's eyebrow raised, but he said nothing.

Juba had practiced his next words so often in his mind that they came out easily. “This
is
Poseidon's Trident,” he said, absently noting how easily he shifted into the tone of a teacher, even in the face of his powerful older stepbrother. “But that's not all it is. It's also Mercury's wand. And Moses' staff. And Nehushtan. And perhaps even more than that. I still don't know all the possibilities.”

Octavian's jaw clenched slightly as he stared at the younger man. “Moses is a Jewish god, no? And I don't know this Nehushtan. Explain.”

“They both have to do with the Jews. Moses was a Jewish leader. Not a god, but a powerful man nonetheless. He led his people from Egypt to Judea—so their stories go—and he was said to have possessed a powerful staff blessed by the god of the Jews. It's said among their writings that with his staff he could strike a rock and make it give water.”

“The same is said of Neptune and Poseidon,” Octavian said quietly. “He did as much in Greece.”

“Exactly so,” Juba said, nodding vigorously. “It's something I've been thinking about. We accept that Neptune and Poseidon are the same god, yet I wonder if the gods and legends of other peoples are not the same, too.”

“Go on.”

“Well, it's also said that Moses, with his staff, parted the Red Sea in order for his people to escape Egypt. He controlled the waters with it.”

Octavian had the same kind of thoughtful look on his face that Juba fondly remembered from his youth. “So these stories of Moses are stories of Neptune by another name. Or, perhaps, if both are real, then this man somehow got the god's weapon. What of Nehushtan?”

“At one point the god of the Jews afflicted them with poisonous snakes,” Juba said. “Strange tale. The god then told Moses to affix a bronze serpent to a staff and use it to cure those who were faithful to him. They called it Nehushtan.” Juba's fingers hovered over the Trident, tracing the broken line of the bronze snake there. “It means ‘brazen serpent' in their tongue.”

The corner of Octavian's mouth lifted. “Twisted snakes. Like Mercury's wand,” he said. “How did you find it?”

“I was searching the old Numidian libraries, and I started to learn about the old religion of the Jews, of which I know far too little. They worship only one father-god now, like our Jupiter, but I don't think it was always so. I think they once worshiped a mother goddess, too, like our Juno. Her name was Asherah. I think she was the same as that which is worshiped in Numidia as Astarte. Anyway, it was among the priests of Asherah that I began to put it all together. And they directed me to an old temple of their faith with many relics. And there I found it.”

To Juba's relief Octavian didn't follow any line of questioning about how he'd acquired it from them. “Who knows?” he asked.

“There are two of us now,” Juba said.

“Good,” Octavian said. He stood, took a few paces back and forth in front of the table. “Good.”

Juba didn't reply, letting Octavian pace. Less than a minute passed before there was another light knock on the door.

“The Senate?” Juba asked.

Octavian ignored the query, but he finally stopped pacing. “How well can you control it?” he asked.

Juba had known this particular question was coming, but it was the one thing he'd never decided exactly how he would answer. Unlike some of what he had just said, he opted for plain truth. “You've seen it. I can feel that it's capable of more, but I've been unable to practice while keeping the secret. I need money for space and privacy, for supplies.”

“Then you'll have it,” Octavian said. “This could be a great weapon in the fight to come, my brother. My personal guard will attend you. We'll give you rooms out at father's villa, and whatever gold you need is yours. Just practice. Get stronger.”

Juba swallowed hard when his stepbrother looked back toward the door and the legionnaires who were no doubt waiting outside to take him to the Senate. Juba hadn't realized until just this moment how worried he was that Octavian would claim the Trident for himself. “I will,” he said.

The Imperator of Rome threw him a smile, then turned and walked toward the door, his stride seeming more confident with every step. As he reached for the latch, he looked back. “We'll talk later,” he said. “After we're at war.”

*   *   *

Only when Juba was safely alone did he let his hands begin to shake. “I'm only sixteen,” he whispered to the empty room. He was old enough to begin military training, but this was something greater by far.

It seemed so preposterous, so improbable. For all his pride, for all his intellect, for all the privileges that Octavian had just accorded him, for all the innate power in the object that sat before him on the table, Juba still felt like a child playing games in the world of men.

And so much was happening so quickly.

He crossed his arms to quell their shaking and stood up, making his way over to Octavian's table of maps once again.

Greece. The armies would fight there. Thousands would die.

But the real battle, Juba was certain, would be in Egypt. In Alexandria. And no one would know about it. Not even Octavian.

Though there were disadvantages to Juba's youth, there were opportunities, too. A younger man was a more trustworthy man, and so much depended on maintaining Octavian's trust. Without it, he could lose everything. After all, he hadn't told Octavian about the even greater source of power among the ancient Jews, the likes of which he didn't think had a parallel among the whole pantheon of Rome. A power to rival that of Jupiter himself. The seat of God, the Jews called it. The Ark of the Covenant, lost for centuries.

Everything pointed to Alexandria and the Scrolls of Thoth. Find them, and he would find the Ark. Find that, and he would change everything. Numidia, his home, would be free. And he would be, too. His father would at last be avenged. And all that he had been forced to do in the meantime—to play the part of a loyal Roman, even to order the death of that Numidian priest—would be worth the greater good.

He would have to play along with Octavian for now, though. Until he possessed the Scrolls of Thoth, nothing was certain, and even then he would need to use the Scrolls to find the Ark, wherever it was. And he couldn't do it alone.

Still, Juba knew from history that all races were won by single steps. He was young and patient. There was time. He'd won Octavian's trust. He now had the power of Rome at his disposal, so long as he played his cards right. One step was done. Now he could take the next: send someone to acquire the Scrolls and bring them to him.

Juba nodded, as if in agreement with something that had been said, then walked purposefully to the door. His hands had stopped trembling, and in his mind he felt a new calm, as if a storm of worry had blown away from him. Through a crack in the door he summoned Quintus.

First, he decided as he waited for the slave's arrival, he would need Quintus to hire a man to go to Alexandria: a hard and desperate man who would do whatever it took to earn the large reward that Juba would offer with Octavian's money. Laenas, he was certain, would fit the bill quite nicely.

Second, he would need to write a letter of introduction to the keeper of the Great Library, the one man who surely knew where the Scrolls were kept. If Juba's teacher Varro was to be believed, the Greek scholar was a man who'd worked for Octavian before. And even if not, promises of power and Octavian's money could go a long way toward persuading him.

Third, he thought with a smile, he would need to track down a good woodworker. After all, if the Trident of Poseidon was once more going to be wielded on earth, it was going to need some repairing.

 

4

N
EWS
FROM
R
OME

ALEXANDRIA, 32 BCE

Vorenus could see that the road-weary Stertinius, the Roman messenger to the Egyptian court, appeared even more exhausted as he stood in the middle of the tall-columned council chamber of Alexandria, facing the high-stepped dais where Cleopatra and her freshly bathed son sat in gilded wood chairs, their ornate headdresses framed by firelight. Beside them, in a chair only slightly less opulent, sat Cleopatra's lover, Antony, his eyes dark and brooding beneath his gray-tinged curls of red hair, his jaw tense as he stared at the messenger. The vizier and at least a dozen high priests of various Egyptian gods and goddesses were arrayed about the marble dais and the rug-covered stones at its feet, their paint-enveloped eyes warily judging the poor, dust-covered soldier standing uneasily in their midst. Interspersed among them all were dozens of Roman officers and soldiers under Antony's command.

One of the last to enter the hall, Vorenus took careful note of the full crowd, unable to shake his continuing feeling of anxiety about the security of the royal family.

Pullo, he saw, was standing with a small group of Romans a few paces behind Antony's seat, looking nearly as miserable as the road-beaten soldier waiting to make his report—Vorenus knew only too well how uncomfortable such official proceedings made him. Pullo was a man of deeds, not words, and though he was rarely called upon to speak at such occasions, the mere thought that it might happen often left him almost paralyzed with fear. Vorenus swung around the gathering crowd to reach him, observing the number and names of the guards on duty—their distance from the royals, their armaments—and approached his friend from behind. “Care to make a speech?” he asked when he got close.

The big man started a little at Vorenus' voice, but there was genuine relief in his eyes when he moved aside to let Vorenus stand beside him. “Not me,” he said quietly. “I'd rather screw a Gallic whore.”

“You
have
screwed a Gallic whore,” Vorenus whispered. “Twice, as I recall.”

“Only proves my desperation. I'd rather do it a third time than be in charge. You're the smart one. It's your job.”

Vorenus gripped his comrade by the upper arm for a moment then stepped forward to stand directly behind Antony's seat.

It was one of the first times he'd seen both Caesarion and his mother in the elaborately formal, dynastic garb that was meant to give them the appearance of Egyptian deities. He noted how uncomfortable the young man seemed to be, trying to stare straight ahead, expressionless as the statues outside the hall. Cleopatra, on the other hand, managed the guise perfectly. Her own expressionless face conveyed whatever emotion one desired to see in it, and her luminous eyes took in everything and nothing all at once. Not for the first time Vorenus felt his own foreignness in this land very sharply.

When at last the final priests had arrived, the queen raised her hand in a call for silence that was almost instantly followed. The vizier stepped forward, bowing to the co-regents before turning to address the gathered court with a series of titles and salutations meant to convey the majesty of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Vorenus ignored it all until the vizier made a half-bow in Antony's direction, clearly providing him the floor to deal with the messenger. Antony in turn gave the vizier a terse nod and then stood, his still-thick muscles hulking beneath the fine cloth that was gathered in pleats about his shoulders.