So too here, in Petra. After shaving and performing his morning rituals, Ahmet went downstairs and found that the cavalrymen had eaten all of the breakfast save a few day-old rolls and a little porridge. He sat in the corner, where the Arab merchant had sat the night before, and ate the spare meal. After he was done, the innkeeper stopped by his table.
“Master Mohammed left a message for you. He is busy all day but will return in the evening and hopes to depart at first light tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Ahmet said. “If it is not impolite to ask, where are the soldiers going?”
The innkeeper grimaced. His son was among the regiment that had finally marched away after leaving the common room and the grounds littered with debris. The worry the departure caused was doing him and his nervous stomach no good at all. “There is fighting in the north, in Syria Coele. The Persians are going to try to take Damascus. So all of the ‘allies’ of the Eastern Empire are sending men to fight at Damascus and stop them.”
Ahmet cocked his head to one side; the townsman seemed displeased by this. “Stopping the Eastern devils would protect all of Arabia and Petra, would it not?”
The innkeeper snorted derisively. “You mean keep it safe for Roman taxation and Roman law! There is a Roman peace, true, but it is a cruel peace if you ask me. We are an ‘ally’ of the Empire, yet their tax collectors pinch us as fiercely as any Imperial province. Their gods are placed over ours, their language at the expense of our own. The young people-they think of themselves as Romans, not Nabateans.”
Ahmet nodded politely. It would be the same if Persia conquered the Arabian provinces, save that with the Persians rode darkness. He shuddered in the cool, dim room. The priests of Hermes Trismegistus hewed to a moral code-one fiercely enforced by the masters of each school-and were very careful in their exercise of the powers of the unseen world. But the stories out of the East, from the Persian capital at Ctesiphon and beyond, did not relate any such restraint. The mobehedan of the Sassanid Empire consorted with demons and devils; they indulged in the necromantic defilement of the dead, they sought power at the expense of their own souls. Even in the placid sun of upper Egypt, the masters of the order would often wake, trembling, at the dark of the moon as the distant echoes of horrific practices in the East troubled the ether.
No matter; he would find the boy and return to the school. Though Ahmet thought that he understood his own purposes well, in truth his mind was a whirl of conflicting desires and intents. He really did not know why he had fled the school, simply that it was no longer the place for him.
It was three days before Mohammed completed his business in the city. All that time, more men, horses, and supplies continued to flow out of the Nabatean capital and up the Wadi Musa to the road to Jerash and the north. Ahmet continued to sit in the caravansary, watching columns of light archers and more horsemen pass by. Long trains of wagons, laden with barrels and crates, followed. On the afternoon of the third day, the priest considered what he had seen-close to fifteen thousand men had headed north. Given the thin population of the Nabatean hinterland, all desert plain and rocky mountains, nearly every able man and animal in the principality had been committed. If this same effort was repeated in the other cities of the Empire, the coming war would be great indeed.
There was something odd, too, about the citizens of the city of stone. To the unaware eye, they were a common-looking people-worn thin by the desert, browned by the sun, with dark hair and eyes. To the Egyptian, though, they seemed furtive. They talked little to strangers, or even among themselves. The nightly ceremonies on the moun-taintop, on the Ad’deir-the high place-were closed to outsiders, and the chanting was indistinct to his ears in the valley below. There was an undercurrent of power in the city as well, something that constantly tickled at the back of his mind, though there was nothing to be perceived if he put his mind to searching it out.
Mohammed bustled in, followed by two of his men. They were swarthy fellows, with a grim look about them. Ornamented knives and short curved swords were thrust into their sashes. They were clad in robes of tan and rust. Mohammed sat down on the bench opposite the priest. His smile flickered on, then off. The merchant was tired.
“Are you ready to travel?”
Ahmet arched an eyebrow. He had been ready to travel for three days. The rest had done his legs good, though; they felt as if they had recovered from the trek up the desert valleys from Aelana. He would be well pleased to be gone from this city that crouched amid the red hills.
“When you give the word, Master Mohammed.”
The merchant slapped a broad hand on the tabletop. “Good. We’re leaving.”
IfDMQMQWOHOMOHOHOHQWOWOHOHOWOHOHOWOHQMOHOWOHOl^pl THE PALATINE HILL, ROMA MATER
Two Praetorians, bulky in their red cloaks and plumed helmets, closed the heavy door behind Aurelian. It made a solid sound, sliding closed, and the acting Emperor sighed in relief. It was late at night, near the midnight hour, and he had just finished the day’s business. Rubbing tired eyes with the heel of his right hand, Aurelian tugged his cloak off and threw it on a backless chair by the door. The dark-purple garment joined a haphazard pile of shirts, tunics, and other cloaks. The rest of the outer chamber was littered with dirty plates and moldy half-eaten fruit.
Aurelian snorted at the sight but ignored it. At home, on his estate northeast of the city, his wife and her legion of servants would have dealt with all of his mess much more effectively. Here, in the city, in the palace, however, he had banned everyone from his rooms, for they were his one small refuge of peace and quiet amid the chaos of the Imperial Court. Even his bath slaves waited outside the door until he was ready to go to the Baths.
As he did nearly every night, he thought of calling for one of his brother’s concubines to soothe him to sleep with gentle hands and a soft, warm body. As he did every night, he shook the thought away. He was too tired to consider anything but the rumpled sanctuary of his bed. He kicked his sandals off, bending the copper clasps that held them closed, and sat down on the side of the large, elevated bed that dominated the inner chamber.
“Hello, brother.”
Aurelian jumped at the soft voice and half turned, his right hand holding a bare dagger, reflexively pulled from its sheath at his belt. Maxian sat in a low chair by the window, a dark-gray cloak draped around his thin shoulders.
Aurelian raised one bushy red eyebrow-his delinquent brother looked even more exhausted and worn down than he did. “Are you all right?”
Maxian raised an eyebrow of his own. He had been thinking the same thing about his older brother.
“Yes,” the youngest Atrean Prince said. “Do I look like you do?”
Aurelian gave a weak laugh and fell backward into the thick cotton and wool blankets on the bed.
“Gods,” he said, rubbing his eyes again. “Galen makes this look so easy! I thought I was helping him before, but there are daily crises that I’ve never even heard of before. No wonder they divided the old Empire-I cannot conceive of trying to run a state twice the size of ours.”
“I am sorry,” Maxian said, guilt plain on his face. “I am supposed to be helping you.”
Aurelian raised his head up enough to give his little brother a good glare, then fell back again, groaning. “No matter, piglet. Even I can tell that something serious is bothering you. What is it*?”
Maxian stood slowly and limped to the door of the outer chamber. He ran his hands over the join at the center of the panels and along the sides. Then he returned to the chair and closed the window shutter, making the same motion over its surface. This done, he settled in the chair, uncorked a heavy wine bottle, and drank a long draft.