Khenti was looking back down the avenue toward the Sun Gate, body taut like a spring. “I heard something.”
“I hear it, too,” Vorenus said. “It sounds like—”
“Music,” Pullo said, completing his old friend’s thought. “I followed a group of legionnaires to the palace, and we all heard it on the way. Seemed to be moving east from the center of the city toward the walls and Octavian’s camp.”
“Who would be playing music at this hour?” Caesarion asked.
The big man shrugged. “The other men thought it an omen.”
Khenti appeared to have relaxed. He looked back at the others. “So what means this omen among Romans?”
“Antony is often likened to Dionysius, god of revelry and debauchery. God of music,” Pullo said.
Caesarion frowned. “The music leads out of town. The men think it’s a sign that Dionysius has abandoned Antony?”
“Something like that,” Pullo admitted.
“Roman omens.” Khenti sniffed.
“We should keep moving,” Vorenus said. “We’re only halfway to the Serapeum, and Didymus will be waiting.”
* * *
Despite Caesarion’s assumptions, the Serapeum complex was not entirely empty. A hundred wide steps led to the hill-crowning temple, and as Caesarion and his small party approached the gate at their foot, two men melted out of the pillared shadows surrounding the barred entrance, their dark cloaks pulled close about their shoulders and hoods drawn to cast their faces into darkness. Whether they were Egyptian or Roman, Caesarion couldn’t tell, but they stood with the same physical assurance that he associated with men like Khenti: effective, confident fighters. He’d never seen anyone like them at the Serapeum before.
Pullo, in the lead, drew their party to a halt a few paces from the gate and spread his arms slightly to show his own weapons. “Titus Pullo,” he said. “I’m here to see Didymus.”
One of the guards stepped forward, hooded head moving up and down them all, as if appraising them. After a few seconds he reached up his hands to pull back his hood.
“Jacob!” Caesarion said, recognizing him at once.
“Pharaoh,” Jacob replied, smiling and bowing his head slightly. “I’m glad you could come despite the late hour.”
Caesarion considered how to reply but in the end only nodded in return.
Jacob abruptly looked over them. “Were they followed?”
Caesarion and the others turned and saw six more hooded men melt out of the shadows behind them. Four of them were carrying bows of blackened wood, the fletchings of quivered arrows just visible over their shoulders. One slight man, smaller than his fellows, stood in their lead. Caesarion could only barely make out the glinting of his eyes as he shook his hooded head.
“Good,” Jacob said, turning toward the temple. “Let’s get inside.”
“Is it customary to follow your invited guests?” Khenti asked. His voice was steady, not betraying whether he was angry at having been secretly followed, or whether he had known it all along.
Jacob glanced back, and his smile was grim. “Tonight it is. Come. There’s only so much time.”
The gate was opened, and Jacob led them up the steps to the red-roofed acropolis, the other hooded figures surrounding them as they climbed into the cool night air. At the top of the stairs they passed through a four-columned portico in the thick, high walls that surrounded the temple proper. Their path between the pillars and altars scattered through the main space of the temple was illuminated by a line of lit oil lamps. The priests of Serapis that Caesarion was accustomed to seeing here were noticeable by their absence. There was no scuffling of movement in the distance, no murmurs or chants that might reveal the stone complex for the temple that it was. Instead, there were only the steady lamps under the stars, leading the way deeper into the complex, and the closer sounds of their own passing. Jacob was in the lead, and the six men who had apparently followed them through the streets now fanned out around their little group as it moved from lamp to lamp. The slighter man whom Jacob had addressed walked to the rear of them all, close behind Khenti. All but Jacob kept their hoods drawn low over their heads and faces. Caesarion, feeling frightened and excited all at once, tried to take his cues from the two Romans and two Egyptians surrounding him, all of whom walked as if they had no worries in the world.
Back through several hallways and rooms they walked, before they reached the staircase of stone that wound down into a series of hidden passageways and entrances into the deeper catacombs carved into the rock below. Caesarion had never been into these shadowed spaces—they were the domain of the priests—and he was soon certain that he was completely lost. At last they entered a long and broad room, its walls and pillars hidden by cases filled with scrolls half visible in the dim light of the few burning lamps. A series of simple wooden tables were set in the middle of the room, most of them covered with piled manuscripts. At one sat old Didymus, two more hooded guards to either side of him. When he looked up and saw the approaching party, his face brightened despite the gloom in the room.
“Fine work, Pullo.” The scholar stood and rubbed his hands together as if to dissipate his excited energies before he came around the table to greet Caesarion. “I’m glad you could come. I was directing the fortification of the Library when they came for me. I hope they didn’t startle you. They did me.”
“No,” Caesarion said, using his most diplomatic smile. “Though I do wonder what business is so urgent and secretive.”
Jacob had taken up a position near Didymus’ vacated chair. For his part, the royal tutor remained beside Caesarion as Vorenus, Pullo, and the two Egyptian guards spread out around them. “But you do know why we’re here, do you not?” Jacob asked. “You know so much already.”
Caesarion instinctively glanced sideways at some of the hooded guards who’d taken up positions in a rough circle around the pool of light in the center of the room. “I understand little.”
“So it is too often in life,” Jacob said. “We cannot answer all, but circumstances dictate that I answer more than we ever could.”
“Circumstances?” Didymus asked, clear expectancy in his voice.
“Octavian’s siege, my dear librarian. And his impending victory.” The Jew’s eyes moved to Caesarion as he spoke, and he nodded his head slightly, as if in apology. “We’ve waited as long as we could, hoping against hope, but we’re certain that Alexandria will fall. Perhaps—in fact, likely—tomorrow.”
Caesarion didn’t dispute the conclusion, much though he desired to do so. Only Antony’s tactical brilliance had bought this night of freedom from the yoke of Rome. That they could count on such results again seemed too much to ask. Even if they somehow staved off Octavian’s armies for another day, another night, Alexandria couldn’t last. To deny it would be folly, and Caesarion prided himself on not being a foolish man. “If, as you say, my city is about to fall to its enemies, I have precious little time for games,” he said coolly. “I’m needed elsewhere.”
“You’re right that there’s little time,” Jacob admitted. “But nowhere are you more needed than here. We need your help, Pharaoh. More than this city and this kingdom are at stake. The world is hanging in the balance.”
“The Shards,” Didymus whispered. “I had hoped so.”
“Yes. The Shards.” Jacob’s tone did not change, making clear the trust in which he held the dozen or so men in the room. “We know without doubt now that Octavian is in possession of the Second Shard. Our spies have seen it. We cannot let him acquire the First.”
“The Ark of the Covenant,” Caesarion said.
“Yes.”
“You told us you knew nothing of its whereabouts,” Didymus said.
“This is only partly true,” Jacob said. “I know that—like so many other treasures—the Ark is here in Alexandria. But I do not myself know where.”