“You may not,” the priest said.
“He looks fine,” Pullo said. “Believe me, I’ve seen the ugly bastard much—”
“One of us is the high priest of the god of healing, Titus Pullo,” the old man said, his voice surprisingly strong and firm as he cut him off. “Is it you?”
“Well, no. I was just saying that—”
“One of us knows the rites of Imhotep and the ancient ways of Asclepius. Is it you?”
“No.”
“Then be quiet.”
The priest leaned over Vorenus. One of his wrinkled hands came up to pull at the skin around Vorenus’ eyes. Then he held the back of his hand to the younger man’s forehead. Vorenus noticed that he smelled of fertile earth.
The old man mumbled something in a language Vorenus could not understand, then he lifted his staff over the bed. It was a straight rod of wood, entwined with a solitary serpent—it looked to Vorenus’ eye like a rat snake—cast of bronze. Moving the snake-wrapped staff back and forth above the sheets, the priest closed his eyes and recited more prayers. Vorenus closed his own eyes, too, trying to hear the words in his mind, to take them in as if they were the healing power of the gods themselves. Even if he couldn’t understand them, they felt comforting. They made the pain feel less real.
When the priest’s intonations were finished, Vorenus opened his eyes to see that the old man had returned the staff to his side and was looking at him plainly. “So. The fever is broken. Good. How are you feeling?”
“Tired. Sore. But alive,” Vorenus said. “Thanks to Asclepius, I take it.”
Pullo, who put little stock in such things as gods and priests and healers, made a quiet scoffing sound, but the old man ignored it. “Or Imhotep, if you prefer,” he said. “We accept either name here. You’ve tired us all out in our labors to speed your recovery, though, Lucius Vorenus.”
“I thank you, priest,” Vorenus said. “I can offer—”
“There’ll be no payment,” said another voice in the room. Vorenus hadn’t heard the door open, but as his eyes followed the old man’s turning he saw Caesarion, leaning against the open door frame, arms folded across his chest. “It’s taken care of,” he said.
The young man looked even older than Vorenus remembered. He’d always been mature for his age, but there was a fresh worldliness in his eyes now. And his movements were more self-assured, as if he were more comfortable in his own skin than he had been before. Vorenus wondered what else had happened since he’d been asleep. “My lord,” he said, trying again to rise.
It was the priest this time, rather than Pullo, who gently pushed him back into the sheets. “So I understand,” the priest said to the young pharaoh. He pushed his snake-wrapped staff out to brace himself as he bowed deeply.
“It is I who should give you such courtesy, dear priest,” Caesarion said, uncrossing his arms and coming forward to help the priest rise. “You’ve saved my friend.”
“Not my help. The help of the gods. But I don’t think he needed much of it, at any rate.” The old man turned back to Vorenus. “I think he’s a hard man to kill, this one.”
“He is that,” said Pullo from the corner.
“How long until he’s up and about?” Caesarion asked.
The priest shrugged. “Another day or two and he should be moving. The worst of the danger has passed. It is only pain and the possibility of opening up his wounds now. A few weeks and he’ll be fine.”
A few weeks? Vorenus groaned.
“Good,” Caesarion said. “That should be in time.”
In time? Vorenus looked questioningly to Pullo, but the big man wasn’t paying attention.
“I’ll leave you, my lord,” the old priest said to Caesarion. He looked to Pullo as he headed toward the door. “Don’t push him now,” he said, waggling a bony finger as if talking to an unruly child. “He still needs his rest.”
Pullo’s smile dampened so slightly that few other than Vorenus would have noticed. “Of course.”
“Thank you, noble priest,” Caesarion said, stepping aside to let the old man pass. “We won’t be long with him.”
The priest mumbled something as he hobbled out of the room, his staff clicking on the stone. When he was gone, Caesarion shut the door quietly. Pullo grabbed the two chairs and brought them up beside the bed, offering one to the son of Caesar as he took the other himself. Caesarion nodded to the big man gratefully and sat down, his shoulders slumping in tiredness. “Glad to see you up,” the young pharaoh said.
Vorenus managed to turn his body to better face the two men. “Me, too. Thank you, my lord.”
Caesarion sighed, but his smile was genuine. “Must everyone thank me when I owe them? First the priest, now you. We’re all in your debt, Lucius Vorenus. If not for you … well, you did your work well.”
The image of Selene, cradled in Pullo’s arms, staring as he prepared to kill her teacher, returned to Vorenus’ mind. “So the children—?”
“There was only the one man, and you took care of him,” Pullo said.
“My sister is scared, but fine,” Caesarion added. Not for the first time Vorenus noted how easily the boy—the man—accepted Antony’s children as his own family. He wondered why Octavian could not act the same.
“Was my fault,” Vorenus said. “Had a bad feeling about Laenas when I met him. I should’ve insisted on a return to the palace at Antirhodos.”
“Even if you had, my mother wouldn’t have listened,” Caesarion said. “She wants no one back on the island until all the workmen have finished. Did you know she’s raised a statue of me there now? Right beside hers, looking like Horus. Massive thing. She means to surprise me with it, but you can see it from the docks. The head alone is taller than my leg.”
“Quite an honor, Lord Pharaoh,” Vorenus said.
“No, it isn’t, Vorenus. You know I’m not a god, no matter how many statues my mother puts up. No matter what headdress I wear or what scepter I hold. No matter what the people think. I’m not Horus.”
“What about Caesar?” Vorenus asked.
Pullo leaned forward, nodding. “He was deified, what, two years after his death? Makes you the son of god, does it not?”
“People like to think of the gods being like us,” Caesarion said. “That’s all. That’s why they made my father a god. It makes them comfortable.”
“Don’t let your mother hear that,” Pullo said. “Isis … Venus … I think she likes being divine.”
“It’s because she’s afraid of growing old,” Caesarion said. “Of losing her beauty. Of dying.”
Vorenus shifted a little, felt the sharp pain of the wound in his side. “I’m afraid to die,” he said. “I don’t think I’m a god.”
“No, but you worship them,” Caesarion said. “Dutifully. Always have.”
“The gods are not to be trifled with.”
“He’s been saying that to me for years,” Pullo said, light laughter in his voice.
“Yes,” Vorenus said, trying but failing to sound stern. “And I hope one day you’ll listen.”
“Bah!” Pullo pushed away at the air as if swatting away invisible bugs. “The gods have done little enough for me. I don’t believe in them. Present company excluded, of course.”
Caesarion rolled his eyes. “The fact that I’m not a god has nothing to do with the existence of any other god. Look at Vorenus here, healed by the power of the priests.”
“Nonsense.” Pullo patted Vorenus’ leg through the sheets, ignoring his friend’s wincing. “He’s simply too strong to go.”
“No,” Vorenus said. “When that priest prayed, when he waved that staff over me, I felt something. The gods have power, my brother. I hope you’ll see it one day, before it’s too late.” It was tiring to talk, but it also felt good. In some small way it helped to push the pain out of his mind.
Before Pullo could reply, Caesarion leaned forward toward the big man. “Look at it this way. You’re alive, aren’t you? After all your battles? All your fights? You’re a good fighter, Titus Pullo, and a good teacher of the arts of war—for which I’m thankful—but skill alone will not serve in battle. You’ve told me as much. So how have you survived if not by the will of the gods?”