New cheers went up, and Caesarion could see that the surviving ships of the fleet that had left with such high hopes were entering the inner harbor. He tried not to think about the wives and children who would count the ships and find that too few had returned, that the ships of their loved ones were gone to the deep.
“There’s proof of this in the stories of these Jews?” Vorenus asked.
“Some, but not all. Didymus found traces of the story in many places. It seems the truth was scattered in men’s memories, the details of what happened only available in bits and pieces that now need to be cobbled together. It’s like a big puzzle, with some pieces missing and others we cannot understand. I’m sure we don’t even know the half of it all still.”
“You believe it, though?”
Vorenus sounded, Caesarion thought, hopeful. He wanted to turn and look at him, but his mother’s ship was close enough now that she would see his fault for sure. Caesarion could see Antony very clearly now. The great general was still waving and smiling, but his eyes were sunken, and his smile was hollow. He looked … broken. Defeated. One of Cleopatra’s hands was draped over his elbow, clinging tightly to him. He wondered to whom she was giving strength. “I think I do,” he finally said.
“I see,” Vorenus said. “And this truth is what Juba was seeking?”
“Juba was looking for the Scrolls of Thoth, but whatever that book is, it is unreachable in Heaven. Only stories about it are here on this earth, whispers that survive in legends. What’s important here and now are instead those Shards of Heaven, those fragments of God’s power that made it here, to earth, to us. The first one arrived more than twenty-five centuries ago. That Shard has a special power to control earth and stone. It was used to build many great structures of the ancient world. Didymus thinks maybe this First Shard was taken to Sais during the Hyksos invasions of Egypt.”
“The Hyksos?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Caesarion said. “It only explains how the Shard became associated with Sais.”
The flagship was turning into the royal dock below the wall. The cheers were very loud. Antony stood and smiled up at him, and Caesarion fought the urge to smile back.
“So is that Shard the Ark you’re worried about?” Vorenus asked. “The one you want to keep from Octavian and this Juba man of his? I thought that it was an object of the Jews.”
“It became that, yes,” Caesarion said once his stepfather turned away to greet the servants and dignitaries lining the dock. Little Philadelphus was down among them, waving happily to his parents. When Cleopatra stood and actually waved back to her little boy, Caesarion was so surprised that he had to collect himself for a moment before he could answer Vorenus’ question. “Thirteen centuries ago, Pharaoh Amenhotep’s eldest son was named Thutmose,” he said, working hard to recall all the names Jacob and Didymus had given him. “His name means ‘Son of Thoth’ in the native tongue. He was the crown prince of Egypt, and he led the armies of the kingdom against the people of Kush, the kingdom up the Nile. He defeated them by marrying a Kushite princess named Tharbis. Perhaps through her influence, or through some other, Thutmose revolted against the religion of many gods held sacred in Egypt, and against his father. Somewhere, somehow, he acquired the Second Shard, which has power over water. He built a staff to hold it, to avoid touching it directly. He became, it is said, a Jew, and his name is known to that people as Moses. He returned to Egypt and took the First Shard from Sais, and he built a kind of box to hold it, which is what the Jews call the Ark of the Covenant. Thutmose took the two Shards and used them to cross the Red Sea and journey toward Judea, escaping Egypt and his father. The Jews who followed him established a kingdom there.”
Vorenus made a sound of uncertainty in the back of his throat. “I know something of the Jews, but I know nothing about them having such great powers.”
Below them, a causeway was being drawn out from the deck of the ship to the dock. Cleopatra and Antony were standing now arm in arm as they started toward it. “Jacob didn’t want to admit the truth that Thutmose and Moses were one and the same,” Caesarion said, “or that the Ark derived its powers from a Shard, but he did so under the questions of Didymus. He couldn’t deny the truth. For the same reason, he admitted that the Ark is no longer with the Jews in Jerusalem. It hasn’t been for many hundreds of years.”
It surprised Caesarion that Antony wasn’t barking orders as soon as he set foot on the docks. Had the defeat so crushed him?
“So where is the Ark now?” Vorenus asked.
“We don’t know,” Caesarion conceded, letting his frustration with the fact show in his voice.
“The Jew didn’t know?”
“Jacob admitted, as Didymus had already discovered, that he’s descended from those who removed the Ark from Jerusalem,” Caesarion said. “But he insisted that he didn’t know the exact whereabouts of it now. How the Second Shard got into Juba’s hands he didn’t know, either, though he was very insistent that we cannot allow him and Octavian to get hold of the First.”
“Why?” Vorenus asked. “I’ve seen enough of the power of the Second Shard—as you call it—to think it the hand of a god. What difference a bit more?”
“This is the crux of it, Vorenus. The Shards are the result of the attempt to remake God, remember? If a man were to gather them together once more, he might be able to reach Heaven. He might even succeed where they failed and become God.”
Cleopatra and Antony disappeared from sight below them, and Caesarion heard the sounds of servants and priests approaching to take him and Selene to meet their parents. He felt like throwing his damnable scepter at the priests, but he knew, with regret, that he’d just hand it over.
“A gate to Heaven,” Vorenus said, his voice quiet.
“Or down to Hell,” Selene whispered.
PART III
THE FALL OF EGYPT
21
A CITY BESIEGED
ALEXANDRIA, 30 BCE
It was after midnight when Vorenus left the battlefield and marched his remaining men back through the tall gates into beleaguered Alexandria. The cool air of the dark, breathed in between chapped and broken lips, was a welcome respite from the midsummer heat of the field that had hung heavy about the men as their battle had raged on long after the sunset. Vorenus drank it into his lungs gratefully, careful not to use his nose to do so. He had no interest in the stench of sweat and blood that they’d be bringing back from the day’s work.
They’d won a victory, Vorenus knew, and he smiled tiredly as his numb legs carried him past the war-worn stone walls and the few remaining guards. Not that it would matter in the end, but Antony—outnumbered two to one and without a navy or even a cavalry following the mass defections of the past month’s siege—had been brilliant. Old Caesar had said no one could best the man on land, and he’d been right. Everyone knew that Octavian had thought he’d strike the final blow this day, that he’d enter the city with the rising sun, triumphant in the defeat of Egypt, but he’d lost. Antony had outfoxed him, bought them all more time.
For what, Vorenus didn’t know. There was no question that Alexandria would falclass="underline" Octavian’s navy—bigger now after the mass defection—had blockaded the Great Harbor and even Lake Mareotis and the canal access to the Nile; and Octavian’s armies had cut them off from both east and west, closing Alexandria in an unbreakable vise. Their defeat was only a matter of time, even if they had more of it now.
No matter, Vorenus thought, his smile spreading as a soft breeze pushed down the road and brushed over him. He was alive.