The crowd moved and the Empress stole a moment to glare at Gaius. "You didn't have to kill him," she whispered, rosebud lips twitching into a very pretty grimace. "I liked Galen! He was always polite to me and kind to my son."
"I did too," Gaius answered from the side of his mouth. "Necessity makes its own demands."
"Very well," she said, forcing a smile for the next of the magnates circulating in the crowded, hot room. Outside, the sun was well up, making the Forum shimmer, and even a system of constantly rotating fans suspended below the ceiling did little to alleviate the heat. "You can tell my husband what happened to his brother. A brother," she said, voice cracking a little, "he loved very much."
Gaius started to say, it was him or me, then restrained himself. He had a very good idea where the Empress Martina's priorities lay and they did not necessarily include an old Roman dictator who happened to have escaped death by a very fine hair. Instead, he nodded somberly. "I will tell the prince. He will judge these events as he will."
One of Gaius' guardsmen approached, nervous without his weapons; the Praetorians had recovered something of their equilibrium and now surrounded the Senate House with a double ring of armed, angry men. The man bobbed his head, trying to draw attention without interrupting.
"Over here, Verus. Stop that, you look like a duck." Gaius Julius turned away from the Empress, leaning close. "What news?"
"Not good, sir." Verus screwed his face up. The old Roman gave him a withering stare. "We've searched the Palatine from top to bottom-" The man's voice dropped like a stone into a well. "-there's no sign of her or the boy. None. Like she just… vanished."
Gaius Julius grunted, his face sliding into careful immobility. He pinned the man with a furious glance. "How long," he said softly, "have Empress Helena and her son been missing?"
"Since…" The man gulped. "Last night. One of her maids says she went to bed at the usual hour!"
One eyelid flickering, Gaius Julius turned away, waving his hand in dismissal. Martina was watching him, her perfect face tinged with feigned concern. Her limpid brown eyes seemed very cold. "Well? What did he say?"
"Nothing we can do anything about now." Gaius Julius felt his stomach slowly unclench. This is what haste gains you, my lad, he chided himself. But our nets will scoop her up. "Your good friend Helena, in her grief, has disappeared."
"Has she?" The Empress of the East's lips curled back from white, white teeth. One smooth hand drifted across her breast, coming to rest with long fingertips on her clavicle. "She'll hide with friends, won't she? Where else would she go?"
Gaius nodded, spying a storm cloud of perspiring senators bearing down on him. He stepped away from the Empress, smiling genially, yet with the trace of profound regret appropriate for such a terrible day.
"Good," Martina said to herself, wondering how much longer she would be forced to endure this heat. She began to smile, spirits lifting. "Their names will be on one of dear Gaius' lists and when the arrests and executions begin, they will beg for their lives and she will be yielded up, trussed like a… a summer sausage!" Then her face fell again and she had to fight against gnawing on a nail. I never meant Galen ill! Stupid, reckless Gaius Julius! She sighed, feeling very lonely. I miss my husband, she thought morosely, but the image in her mind was neither Maxian nor Heraclius, exactly.
CHAPTER FIFTY
The Wasteland
"You are Mohammed," the wounded man said in a weak voice, forcing his eyelids open. They were caked with grime, dried blood and crusty yellow crystals. The rest of his face-once darkly handsome-was no better, his eye sockets surrounded by glassy scars, his scalp lacerated by jagged cuts. "You were selling cups and plates; a whole caravan of beautiful red pottery…"
"Yes," Mohammed answered, lifting the Egyptian from the black sand. The body was very light, but still had some weight. Ahmet had been a strong man with a powerful build in life. "Is my caravan the last thing you remember?"
"I…" Ahmet turned his head weakly, an expression of bewilderment working its way across his wounded face. He did not seem to recognize the wasteland of broken, black stone and weathered spires. "I remember roses climbing a plastered wall and… and a woman." He stopped speaking, his body clenching convulsively into a tight ball. Mohammed let him shudder, holding Ahmet close while he climbed carefully out of the pit. There did not seem to be any weather in this place-the flat, black sky remained still and unblemished by clouds or wind or even a celestial body-but instinct bade him find shelter.
One of the jagged boulders harbored an egg-shaped opening in one side, the largest among hundreds of cavities and pits eroded from the glassy stone. Mohammed ducked inside, finding the floor covered with the same obsidian-colored sand as the plain. He noticed, but was no longer surprised by, the directionless, ambient light picking out every detail. There was no sun-the air itself seemed to be the source of this queer, febrile radiance.
He laid Ahmet down, letting the Egyptian's body uncurl at its own pace.
"Do you remember her name?" Mohammed sat on the sandy floor beside his friend, the staff of fig wood leaning against his shoulder. "Do you remember the golden city?" Do you remember the siege?
Ahmet managed to nod, though he seemed very weak. "I remember the last day. A dreadful shape rising above the towers…"
"You fell," Mohammed said softly, "and your body was stolen by the enemy. I searched among the ruins, but you had been taken away. Do you remember what happened after that?"
Convulsive shuddering wracked the emaciated body again and the Quraysh waited patiently until the spasms passed. This seemed to take a long time, though Mohammed noticed he did not tire, or grow hungry or thirsty. He began to wonder if time had any meaning in this place, wherever it was. It may not, he considered, if this plain is beyond life and death alike.
The Egyptian lay still again. Mohammed waited until the man's eyes opened. "Do you remember now?"
"Yes." The word was flat, and dead, and laden with enormous, inexpressible weight. "I do."
"How did you come to be here?" The Quraysh tried to restrain his curiosity-there is time enough to be patient, or is there? — Moha had claimed time did not pass in this place, but what if he had lied? What if the perception of timelessness were part of the trap, the prison?
A dry, rasping sound shook Ahmet's body and the Quraysh was heartened to recognize a feeble attempt at laughter. "I do not know what this place is. I became aware of this desert when you touched my shoulder. Before that… I was… I was in Egypt."
Mohammed frowned. "Egypt? What do you mean?"
Now the withered, scarred lips twisted, trying to smile. "I sat in a great temple-not the Serapeum, but one looking out upon the sea and the harbor-and the multitudes came before me, bowing, offering tribute and sacrifice." Ahmet's hands moved, groping around his head. "Hard to see what they dragged before my altar through the mask, but there were screams…" His lips fluttered, broken teeth making a click-click-click sound.
"What kind of mask?" Mohammed squatted, trying to make out the croaking words.
"…there were many priests and they wore the casque of Set and the lords of shadow… There were statues-new statues-of me… She was seated at my side, I could smell her hair!" Ahmet's eyes flickered open, filled with shock and surprise. "I can still smell her, hear them, hear the screams of men on the breaking block!"