The scholar’s eyes were locked on the Roman’s face. “I’ve no reason to lie,” he said, disturbed by how true it was now.
“No, you don’t,” the assassin admitted.
Didymus was certain the relief must be apparent on his face. He looked down at the letter in his hands, swallowed hard. “I just don’t know where it is.”
“I know. So you don’t have a reason to live, either,” the assassin said, pulling his blade free with a metallic ring.
The sound of it snapped Didymus’ eyes back up, and he instinctively tried to stand, to jump away from the bared blade. But his feet slipped on the scattered drafts of his book, sending papyrus and vellum skittering out into the air even as he flailed backward and struck the back of his skull on the stone ledge beneath the window.
For a moment the room was a spinning haze of manuscripts floating in the moonlight, a slow-time dance through which the blade in the assassin’s hand moved gracefully, like a metal hawk angling against the wind, glinting hungrily. Didymus thought he cried out, but there was no sound. He tried to move, but darkness descended over his mind like a falling curtain.
Then, all at once, the doorway behind the assassin burst open. And light—blinding light—flooded the room.
8
THE LIBRARIAN’S DOOR
ALEXANDRIA, 32 BCE
Vorenus regretted letting go of the balcony railing almost as soon as he began sliding down the steadily sloping stone face of the palace wall. Distances were deceptive in the dark: despite his familiarity with the complex, the garden beneath him seemed to be much farther down than he anticipated. And he was picking up speed faster than he thought he would.
Not to mention that he wasn’t as young as he used to be.
He reached out, pressed the leather vambrace strapped to his forearm against the stone. Its metal buckles sent out a flicking trail of sparks in his wake, but it did little to slow his pace.
Vorenus brought his other arm over his face as he hit the first whipping fronds of the tall palms that grew close to the wall. The space of a heartbeat followed before he crashed into the softer leaves of the tended plants below, his legs buckling instinctively and the air leaving his lungs even as he kicked forward and rolled across the hard earth.
He came to rest against the low wall bounding the little garden, and for a moment all he could do was stare at the slow wisps of cloud crossing over the moon above. His right hip throbbed in protest of the exertion. The ribs on his left side positively ached. And he could feel the sting of more scratches than he cared to imagine. He had slid more than four floors along the building. He’d done stupider things in his life, but not many.
Too damn old, Vorenus thought. If he didn’t feel the urgency of danger, and if he didn’t know that it would hurt too much, he would have laughed at his own foolish mortality. Instead, he painfully pulled himself to his feet, the air only beginning to return to his lungs.
Not bothering to dust himself off, Vorenus started south along the stone path through the garden at an easy trot, speeding up as he caught his wind, his head on a swivel to get his bearings and his mind determinedly pushing away the pain of his fall. The figure he’d seen from the balcony had been moving inward from the main walls, toward the residential areas south of the palace. Cleopatra and Caesarion were safe, he was sure: there were more than enough guards in the council chambers, and Pullo would see to it that everything was secured quickly.
No, it was the children that Vorenus kept thinking about: Cleopatra’s younger children by Antony. The twins Selene and Helios, and little Philadelphus. With the council bringing an increase of guards at the palace, there would be no better time to strike at the youngest members of the royal family. Vorenus stole a glance off to his left, where the island of Antirhodos sat low in the harbor. He should have been more forceful about insisting that the family stay in residence at their palace there. He’d been foolish to allow Cleopatra to have her way about moving them all while the new addition was built. Foolish.
Fighting the urge to damn himself for the danger, Vorenus pulled out his gladius and set off at a run.
* * *
He’d just entered the main hall of the residential complex, just started making his way toward the quarter where the twins and young Ptolemy would be sleeping, when Selene’s hushed shout froze him in his tracks. “Vorenus!”
He turned, lowering his blade slightly so as not to frighten the girl. Selene was looking out from behind the half-open doorway leading not to her hallway, but his own. She looked deeply frightened.
Taking a quick glance to left and right, Vorenus padded over, kneeling to make her feel more at ease. “Selene,” he whispered. “What are you—”
“Didymus’ room,” she stammered. “Rome. Rome.”
“Slow down.” Vorenus took her slight shoulders in his hands as if to steady her. “Deep breath. Now. What’s in Didymus’ room?”
Selene’s eyes were wide. “A man,” she said. “From Octavian.”
Vorenus stood, started to tell her to stay where she was. But then he realized that he didn’t know if the man was still in Didymus’ room. And surely there’d be no reason for the man to go to the librarian’s room aside from attempting to use him to get to the children. So her safety had to be his first priority. He couldn’t protect her here.
By the gods, where’s Pullo?
“Okay,” he said, getting his bearings again. “Stay close. We’re going to go help Didymus. If I tell you to, though, I want you to run, okay? Doesn’t matter why. Just run, as fast as you can, for the council chambers. Don’t look back. Got it?”
Selene nodded vigorously. It wasn’t much of a plan, Vorenus knew, but at least it was something. And, gods willing, some of the other guards would arrive soon.
Didymus’ room wasn’t far down the hall. Fortunate, since Vorenus took every step as another reason to curse himself for leaving so few guards in the residential areas, for not insisting that the family stay in the much more secure palace on Antirhodos.
When they got close to the librarian’s room, Vorenus tried to push his guilt back out of his mind to focus on the moment. He crept forward cautiously, his gladius drawn and ready, while with his spare hand he pushed Selene as far back as she was willing to go. At the door, he leaned his ear against the wood.
Nothing. He wondered if he was too late, if Octavian’s assassin had already come and gone, leaving Didymus dead in his wake. Or perhaps he was forcing the librarian to lead him to the children’s rooms.
Vorenus was just starting to pull away when he heard the Greek’s voice within. “I can’t,” Didymus said.
“Not what I want to hear,” another voice replied. Selene was right: he did sound Roman. And vaguely familiar.
Laenas.
Vorenus listened with increasing silent rage as the assassin revealed Didymus’ role in the assassination attempt on Caesarion’s life, the near-murder of that innocent child that set him and Pullo on the path to this place, this time: cast out by Rome, enemies of the very state they desired so much to serve.
Didymus! If Vorenus wasn’t hearing it for himself, he would never have believed it.
And what were these Scrolls of Thoth that the assassin’s employer was after? Why were they so important?
“I just don’t know where it is,” he heard the Greek reply to the assassin’s questioning.
“I know,” Laenas said. “So you don’t have a reason to live, either.”
Vorenus heard, unmistakably, the metallic glide of a blade being drawn. He envisioned, in the eye of his mind, the scar-faced Roman moving in for a strike.
As he had many years before, wading into the thick of the barbarians in Gaul to rescue his wounded rival, Pullo, Vorenus acted without thinking. That Didymus had once betrayed the royal family—that even now he might be willing to sell them all to Octavian if he actually had access to the Scrolls—didn’t cross his mind in the moments after he heard Laenas pull a blade.