As always, his calm confidence both infuriated and bewildered her. "Why do you think the siege will be over soon? Because we will be defeated?"
"No," he said. "I think that Hamilcar will get some very bad news soon, news that will force him to break off the siege and the war."
"What? What news could do that?"
"Let me keep that to myself for the moment. Rest assured that it will happen. One morning soon we shall look out over the western wall and see nothing but the remains of Hamilcar's camp and nothing but a plume of dust in the air to show us where they've all gone."
She considered this, weighing many factors in her mind: matters of politics and greed and ambition. "If that is true," she said, "then we must deal with my brother and his advisers first. Otherwise, the moment Hamilcar leaves, we are both dead. If we strike now, we are safe. Parmenion and the eunuchs are in disgrace and no one will mourn their passing. We can't let them convince people that they've won some sort of victory."
Marcus smiled. "Spoken like a true Ptolemy."
"How else would I talk," she said. "I am a Ptolemy."
"The only one worthy of the name," Marcus told her. "You must hide. Go to the temple of Serapis. He's the patron deity of the city and a great mob of the citizenry are camped out on the temple grounds. The citizens love you and they will protect you there. Go now. I have to consult with Chilo. He's figured out a way to use the big new catapults against that gallery on the southern wall. Now that it's not full of Romans, I won't mind destroying it."
"Will you take your mind off fighting for one minute!" she cried, her patience ended. "We must consider the future!"
"The future?" he said, nonplussed.
"Exactly. If we live, I will be Queen of Egypt. Queen in my own right, not through marriage to my brother. I must have a consort."
"Certainly. But he will have to be someone whose birth is commensurate with your own. I am sure there are many kings and princes-"
She hissed and closed her eyes. "You've never met any of the disgusting, degenerate creatures who call themselves kings in the eastern lands, have you?"
"I confess that I haven't. Surely there is someone suitable."
"No. I don't want some pedigreed imbecile to share my bed. He must be a man. So far, I have met only one who meets the definition. You."
For a moment words failed him. "You can't be serious. I am as well born as any Roman, but we have no royalty. I'm not even a very important Roman."
"Spare me your humility! You've manipulated Hamilcar, Ptolemy, me and the whole city of Alexandria ever since you left Noricum! Forget about breeding, you are a man who can do things! Do you think the first Ptolemy was born a king? He was just a soldier who was in the right place at the right time. You are a man of the moment, and I want you for my husband when this is over."
"You want me to be King of Egypt?" he said, sounding unsettled for the first time since she had known him.
She stepped close and wound her arms around his neck. "Not king exactly. Consort. It's still a very desirable position." She drew his face down to hers.
For the first time in many months something entirely personal pushed aside his discipline and devotion to duty. He wondered whether he was being utterly foolish, then he discovered that he didn't care. He swept her up in his arms. The sun would come up tomorrow no matter what the two of them did here tonight. Let tomorrow take care of itself.
Chapter 20
Hamilcar inspected the gallery, now manned by soldiers from Utica, Sicca and other subject cities of Africa. It was now much improved from the simple shed the Romans had erected. Working day and night, first the Roman soldiers and then his own slave gangs had heaped earth against the side facing Alexandria, creating a sloping ramp that protected the wooden wall against fire and the stones of catapults. Behind the shed, towers were going up. Soon they would overtop the low southern wall of the city and his archers and artillery would be able to fire down upon the defenders.
When the towers were completed, in another day or two at most, he could sweep the wall clean of defenders, allowing his sappers to attack the canal gate and give him access to the city. Who could have imagined, Hamilcar thought complacently, that the outlandish Romans would give him the key to taking Alexandria? And that the weak spot was the supposedly impregnable southern wall of the city?
"There was some sort of activity going on in the city all night," Mastanabal reported to his Shofet. "There was hammering and shouting. They're up to something." The general was looking wan these days, Hamilcar thought. Doubtless, the cross was ever in his thoughts. He had proven to be unable to take Alexandria quickly and knew all too well the fate of unsuccessful Carthaginian generals.
"Men in besieged cities often seek desperate remedies to extricate themselves from their difficulties," Hamilcar said. "They think novelties such as those absurd craft in the harbor can somehow save them."
The general was diplomatic enough not to point out that Hamilcar had made no further attempt to take the harbor. The seamen had acquired a superstitious dread of the bizarre craft that seemed more like living creatures than wooden ships driven by sails and the arms of rowers.
"I want-" the Shofet's words were cut off abruptly when they heard a whizzing noise, followed by an enormous splash in the lake behind them. "What was that?" He looked out to see the lake still agitated. A moment later water from the splash came down like a great rain.
"What just happened?" the Shofet said, unable to comprehend. Then came another splash, this one nearer to shore, casting up a huge spout of mud. A large fish landed near Hamilcar's feet and lay there flopping.
Then there came a deafening crash. Thirty paces east of the place where Hamilcar and his general stood, a huge ball of stone smashed through the lead-sheathed roof, pulping a number of soldiers and sending shudders through the whole gallery. Another crashed through the roof, then yet another.
"It's those big catapults!" Mastanabal cried, understanding now. "They've moved them across the city! They are casting stones over the rooftops to destroy this gallery! You must get to safety, my Shofet!"
Hamilcar had already figured out the last part. He could not stay here. He whirled and began to run, certain that one of the huge stone balls would squash him like a bug. In seconds he was just one of a crowd of fleeing soldiers, shoving them out of the way with his own hands, heedless of the contamination he incurred by touching unclean flesh.
It seemed an eternity later that he was beyond the gallery and safe from the terrible missiles. He saw a man in the plumes of an officer and beckoned to him. The officer, brilliant in his gilded armor, stood trembling before his Shofet.
"Commander," Hamilcar said, "I want you to assemble all these men"-he pointed to the soldiers who had fled the gallery-"and take them to that field over there." He indicated a broad meadow at the western end of the lake, currently being used to pasture the Carthaginian livestock.
"At once, my Shofet," the man said, bowing. He strode away shouting orders.
Mastanabal came from the wreckage, picking wood splinters from his cloak and beard. "It seems the Roman project was not so good an idea, after all."
"That is not important at the moment," Hamilcar said. "You see those men assembling in the field?"
Mastanabal studied the survivors. "Yes." He estimated that three of four hundred men remained standing.
"Go get my personal guard. Disarm those men, then crucify them all."
Mastanabal understood. "Yes, my Shofet." He bowed and went in search of the guard and some carpenters. The men had done nothing to deserve punishment, but their offense was more serious than treason: They had seen their Shofet panic. They had seen him run. Mastanabal shuddered. He, too, had seen Hamilcar play the coward. Was there a cross waiting for him as well?