For now, for today, Vorenus heard himself adding in his mind. But he said nothing.
“Yes,” Caesarion said—his smile proud or sad, Vorenus couldn’t tell. “A fine day’s work. I should have ordered some feast in celebration. As it was, I sent the wine to the temple of Asclepius, for the wounded.”
“A poor choice,” Antony muttered, his voice sounding more defeated than defiant at the pharaoh’s decision. “Wine is wasted on the dying.”
Caesarion’s shoulders shrugged in reply.
“But what of my queen?” Antony asked. “Your mother.”
“Her Highness has retired to Antirhodos,” Khenti said, his eyes unreadable in the dark. “This afternoon.”
“And the children?”
Caesarion appeared to take Antony’s question to include him. “Still here. All of us.”
Antony started to say something more, then stopped and turned to look down the hall to the balcony. After a moment he began to walk, slowly, in that direction. The others followed him out to stand, as Vorenus once had with Pullo, overlooking the palace grounds and the Great Harbor beyond. Antirhodos was a stretch of black against the moving reflections of the water. Antony set his hands against the stone wall and stared out at it as if seeking movement.
“She didn’t tell you she was going to the isle?” Vorenus asked from beside him.
“Not today,” Antony said quietly, the cooler wind off the ocean brushing through his still-thick curls of hair. “Though we did talk about it coming to this. Someday.”
Vorenus agreed, not knowing what else to say.
Caesarion was standing back from the balcony, beside Khenti. “She said the island would be more easily protected than the palaces here,” he said. “I disagreed.”
“Of course,” Antony said, his voice distant. “Good man.”
“Thank you, sir,” Caesarion said, genuine pride in his voice.
After a minute, Antony spoke again. “Are there priests with her?”
Caesarion took a moment to answer, and when Vorenus looked back at him, he saw that there was confusion in the young man’s face. “Priests?”
Antony didn’t turn back. “She may want to pray,” he said into the night.
“The priests of Isis are at the temple there, as always.”
Antony’s nod was almost imperceptible. “Isis,” he said. “The resurrecting goddess.”
The other men said nothing, and Antony just stared out into the harbor, face dark.
“I can call a boat, sir, to take you out to the island,” Vorenus said.
“No. No matter. The light’s out.” Antony’s eyes turned to Vorenus, but his gaze seemed somewhere else, somewhere far away. “I’ll pass this night at the Timonium,” he said.
“As you wish, sir,” Vorenus said. “Though the children—”
“The children…” Antony choked off the words, his body tensing for a moment as he froze up, thinking. “No, no,” he said, as if responding to a question. “Let them sleep. A peaceful night.” He breathed deep of the air. “Sleep.”
“Yes, sir,” Vorenus said.
Antony nodded, seemed ready to turn away, but then he stopped and refocused his attention on the legionnaire. “Vorenus, I…” The general blinked, appeared uncharacteristically uncertain. “Well, it’s been a pleasure having you beside me all these years.”
Vorenus, uncertain himself, kept his face stoic. “I’ve been honored to fight for you, sir.”
“I hope … that is to say…” Antony stammered to a halt, then sighed and smiled in a kind of genuine warmth. He held out his hand. “Thank you, Vorenus.”
Vorenus took the offered hand and shook it. “Thank you, sir.”
Antony held the grip a few seconds longer than Vorenus would have expected, then let go. “You’re a good man. A loyal man. Remember that.”
One of the Egyptian guards appeared from the darkness of the main hall and bowed to Caesarion and Antony in turn before whispering a report to Khenti’s ear and then hurrying back into the dark.
“What news?” Antony asked, a new softness bordering on humor in his voice. “Octavian has breached the walls?”
“Only Titus Pullo to see Vorenus,” Khenti said, his face characteristically stone. “I’ve ordered him kept at the gate, sir.”
Something flashed in Antony’s face, but it passed too quickly for Vorenus to read. “No,” the general said, waving his hand absently as if brushing his former orders out of the air. “Let him come in. I’m on my way out anyway.”
Khenti bowed and then disappeared into the darkness.
Antony watched him go before turning back to Vorenus. “Tell Pullo … well, give him my regards. He, too, is a good man.”
“Of course,” Vorenus said, unsure what more he could say.
“Good,” Antony said, once again looking out over the harbor. “Good.”
“I’ll have a guard called to walk you to the Timonium,” Caesarion said.
“No, not necessary,” Antony replied, taking in the young man with a smile of gratitude. “It isn’t far. I’d like to go alone.”
“As you wish,” Caesarion said.
“You’ve done well, you know,” Antony said. And then, before Caesarion could reply, the general reached out and clasped him by the shoulders, pulling him into an embrace.
Caesarion appeared to be surprised by the gesture, but he was quick to return the embrace, brief though it was. “I was raised well,” he said.
“Then we must once again give thanks to Vorenus,” Antony said when they parted. “And to Pullo, as well.”
Vorenus bowed slightly. “I will tell him as much, sir.”
Antony had the look of a man relieved. He inhaled the salty scents of the air. “I should go, then. Khenti no doubt has Pullo waiting in the hall.” He glanced one last time toward the harbor. “I think I’ll actually walk down by the docks on my way out. It’s a good night for it.”
Antony looked to them both, smiled, and then was gone into the darkness of the hallway.
“Vorenus,” Caesarion said when he was gone, his voice like that of a man waking from a dream. “You don’t think he…”
Caesarion didn’t have to finish the sentence for Vorenus to know what he was talking about. He was certain Antony had been considering falling on his sword since Actium. “Perhaps. There aren’t many options left for us all,” Vorenus whispered.
Caesarion took a step toward the hallway. “But if he’s really going to … shouldn’t we go and—”
“No,” Vorenus said, reaching out to place his hand on the younger man’s elbow and hold him back. “We shouldn’t. It’s his choice, my boy. It’d be more honorable than the Triumph. We cannot deny him that.”
Caesarion’s face flushed hot, with anger or sorrow, Vorenus couldn’t tell.
“Besides,” Vorenus said, deciding at last to be open and honest with him, “it could save your mother. Maybe yourself.” Vorenus doubted this was so—Octavian would surely parade them all in Rome, and Cleopatra and Caesarion, maybe even the younger children, were too much of a threat to be allowed to live—but he supposed there was at least a chance.
“But the children…” Emotion cracked the young man’s voice.
“As he said: let them sleep.”
“I can’t just let him go.”
“You can,” Vorenus said. “And you must. Perhaps he’s only tired from the day. Perhaps we’ll see him again tomorrow.” He tried to keep his voice light, whispered as it was, but even so he doubted it himself. He felt certain, in his heart, that he’d seen Mark Antony for the last time in life.
Caesarion’s shoulders slumped, and the tension went out of his arm. The resignation was hard for Vorenus to see in one so young, one with so much promise and potential. For a moment he instinctively wanted to curse the gods for giving the young man such a tragic fate, but then he caught himself. No gods meant no fate. It was just open choice and random chance, that was all. That was all anything was. He’d been a fool ever to think differently.