9
Usem did not bother to ask for admission to
Augustus’s chambers. The wind had returned to him for the first
time in days, bringing an ice storm to his chamber, and news that
the plague had traveled still farther, that Sekhmet gloried at the
edge of the sky, and now his mind was filled with his own
responsibilities. He threw open Augustus’s door and found the
emperor dozing in his chair, clearly drunk. Augustus sat up,
startled but not on guard, and Usem snorted with disgust. The man
was no warrior. He was scarcely a man. Even as Usem looked at him,
Augustus drank another draft of his potion, the theriac. The smell
of the potion put the Psylli off. It smelled like witchcraft, like
Chrysate’s influence.
“There is a plague,” Usem said. “It has broken out
in the villages surrounding Rome, from one end of the country to
the other, even to Sicily.”
“I have no help for plague,” Augustus scoffed. “You
are the sorcerer, not I, and to cure a plague requires magic. It
must run its course and kill whom it will. The countryside has
always been vulnerable.”
“The plague is traveling,” said Usem. “It is not
merely a summer sickness but something of the spirit world.”
Augustus suddenly looked more alert.
“Cleopatra?”
“Cleopatra may be captured, but the Old One is not.
My wife has seen the goddess, and she has seen the plague traveling
around the world at Sekhmet’s pleasure. You might see it yourself
if you went outdoors and looked at the sky. Have you not seen the
flashes of light at the edge of the world? The stars streaking
across the heavens? Surely, even the Romans do not think such
things meaningless. I ask leave to go, assemble my people, and
fight. The queen should have been destroyed when we captured her.
Now it will be harder. I thought Rome shared my goals, but perhaps
you do not. You keep the queen imprisoned, but the goddess she
serves is more dangerous than she. What do you plan to do with
her?”
“That is not for you to know,” Augustus said,
though he himself wondered the same thing. What was Chrysate doing
in her room? “You will stay in Rome. If I travel, you will travel
with me. You will be my general if Agrippa will not. You said that
you would defend Rome, and I hold you to your word.”
“I came here willingly,” Usem said. “Do not waste
my goodwill.”
“I am the emperor,” Augustus replied, his jaw
tensing. “Do not waste my time.”
“You waste your own time,” Usem said. “And there is
little of it left. If we do not go out in force to fight this, it
will be too late. You bought a warrior when you agreed to hire me.
Let me do my work.”
He stalked from the room, and Augustus sat for a
moment, uncertain, frustrated, before he rose to his feet and went
in search of Chrysate. At least, she could reassure him that
Cleopatra was still safe in her box.
The priestess’s room was empty, the windows open,
and the bed unrumpled. Augustus felt suddenly as though he had lost
months since the battle. The hearth was lit, and a large bronze
cauldron was upon it. Augustus did not recall ever having seen it
there before.
He took a step toward it.
The room was very still, and Augustus suddenly felt
terrified. There was nothing to fear. She was not here. Then he
looked down at the floor. His slippers were soaked with
blood.
There was something inside the cauldron. Something
large.
Something moving.
Augustus could not find his voice. He had given her
Selene. What had she done?
“No,” he whispered.
With a screaming gasp, something rose from the
cauldron, pale and streaming with dark water, naked, and with her
hair plastered to her back.
Augustus fell backward onto the floor as Chrysate
emerged from the boiling liquid, her skin clear and perfect as a
statue’s, her eyes startled at his presence.
He turned and sprinted from the room, his mind
spinning, his heart racing. Witchcraft. Blood. A boiled corpse, or
at least, that was what he was sure he’d seen, and then—
Perfect and young, Chrysate coming out of the fire.
How had he forgotten her powers? She was not human, and he’d been
sharing his bed with her. He nearly convulsed with horror.
“Agrippa!” Augustus shouted, running through the
corridor. “Marcus Agrippa!”
This was Agrippa’s fault. He had brought the witch
to Rome, and now—
What had he seen? He didn’t know. He should never
have used witches. He should never have trusted witches. He bolted
theriac directly from its bottle, desperate for calm. His heart was
beating too quickly, his breath coming too fast.
“What is it?” The general arrived more quickly than
Augustus had expected. “I was on my way to you,” Agrippa said. “I
have news of a weapon, a way to destroy Cleopatra—”
“Chrysate has done something, killed someone. I saw
her, at the fire, in the fire—”
“What do you mean?”
“The silver box is gone,” Augustus stammered. His
mind felt tangled and drunk, and suddenly he was dizzy. Was she
working a spell on him?
“It is not gone. I have just seen it. The guards
watch it all night and all day. My own men.”
“Then perhaps Cleopatra is escaped from it—”
“The queen is captured.” Agrippa’s face was
suspicious, but for a moment, Augustus saw terror flash across it.
“Or so I believed. Tell me I am not wrong.”
“Usem told me that there is a plague,” Augustus
interrupted. “All over Italy. Everywhere but Rome.”
“There are always plagues,” Agrippa replied. “It’s
summer.”
“The plague comes from Cleopatra’s vengeance. She’s
missing,” Augustus insisted. “And Chrysate has done something
monstrous—” But even as he said it, Chrysate appeared behind him,
opening the curtains of his bed.
“She does not seem to be missing,” Agrippa said.
“Did you forget who shared your bed?”
Augustus was terrified. She had not been there. Had
she? Had he gone mad? She was wearing only a flimsy silk gown, and
he could see everything through it. Her hair was still wet from the
cauldron.
“I am here,” Chrysate said. “I have been with you
all night, as you should certainly know. If Cleopatra is missing,
you are the one who has charge of her. Your guards guard
her.”
Augustus nearly screamed. He could not understand
what was happening. He felt dizzy, and his slippers were still
soaked in blood. He held one out to show Agrippa, and for a moment,
the general looked startled.
“The kitchen slaughtered a chicken and made a soup
for me,” Chrysate said. “He tread in the blood. Do you not
remember, Augustus? You are not well. If I were you, I would summon
a physician.”
She spun on her heel, leaving the room.
The general’s lip curled in disgust.
“If you’re looking for a creature who might cause a
plague, I suggest you look into your own bed. You might look to
your witch.”
“I am looking to her! You must go out and
fight this plague!” Augustus insisted.
Agrippa slammed his fists on Augustus’s desk,
tipping the theriac over.
“I AM A SOLDIER!” he shouted. “I wage war against
men, not gods! Not Fates! Not witches! Not curses invented by
drunkards! You sit here in your study, drinking your potion and
wallowing in your fears. Your uncle would be ashamed of you. You do
not rule. You rave!”
Augustus sputtered, stunned. Agrippa had never
spoken so to him.
“How dare you?” he managed. “I will have you
crucified!”
“I speak as your friend. There are threats out
there. There are threats in here! Real threats. I will fight
them for you, but you cannot ask me to fight the invisible. There
are rumors in the streets that you’ve gone mad, and prophecies that
Rome is cursed and doomed. I delivered them to you a week ago, and
have you read them? You have not. What have you done? You stay here
all day and all night with your witch and your drug. Your power
grows weaker every day.”
Agrippa paused, breathing heavily.
“I am done,” he said. “Do what you will with me,
but do something!”
“Get out of my sight,” Augustus screamed. “I am
governing Rome! You have no idea what I do!”
“With pleasure. I have a city to defend.” Agrippa
smacked his hand against the theriac, and the bottle sprayed across
the room. “If you care anything for that city, I suggest you stop
drinking this poison. It makes you blind.”
He slammed the door as he left.
Augustus’s heart raced, his brain straining at the
base of his skull. A blazing light began to flash and rotate before
him, like a sun newborn in the confines of his room. His eyes
rolled backward, and the lioness approached him in the crimson
darkness, her golden eyes slitted, her breasts bared, and her
fingers placed on a bowstring. She looked at him with such knowing.
Such understanding. She was the only one who knew what he had been
through.
He should give himself to her, that was it. He
should give Rome to her—He heard himself shout, and his eyes flew
open. He dunked his head in a basin of cool water, raising his face
from the liquid only when it felt that he might drown. In the
polished glass above the basin, he saw his pallor, and a thin
thread of blood trickling from his nose onto his lips.
He was losing himself.
Augustus sat down carefully, his legs shaking. Was
Agrippa right? And the Psylli? He’d said the same thing.
He stood and went to the sword that hung above his
mantel. He took it from the wall and swung it experimentally. It
had been years since he’d fought. He was not sure he remembered how
to do it. He looked at the pool of theriac on the floor. Had he
hallucinated what he saw in Chrysate’s chamber?
He looked at his bloodied slippers. No. He had
not.
Agrippa was wrong about the theriac, a simple
medicine, but still, he’d become too used to its effects. He needed
all his strength now, all his intellect. He would significantly
lessen his dose, wean himself from it.
He swung the sword again, his arms shaking. He
buckled on his armor. It was heavy and clammy against his
skin.
Augustus peered out the window, squinting in the
sunlight. Where would he go? Who would go with him?