I strode from the terrace into the grandly appointed room, not looking back. I slowed my pace for a moment as I passed the statue of Venus. There was something about the queen that reminded me of the goddess, some intangible quality to which great artists attune their senses. Ordinary men call it divinity and know it when they encounter it, even if their tongues cannot capture it with words or their hands give shape to it in sculpture. Queen Cleopatra possessed that quality-or was I simply dazzled for the moment, as any man can be dazzled by an object of desire? Surely Cleopatra was no more a goddess than Bethesda had been, and Caesar no more a god than I.

I pushed open the bronze doors and stepped out of the room, and did not realize I was being followed until I heard a voice mutter behind me: "She's trouble."

I stopped and turned around. Meto almost collided with me, then stepped back a respectful distance. "Papa," he whispered, lowering his eyes.

I made no answer. Despite his armor, despite his strong limbs and his battle scars and the thick stubble across his jaw, he looked to me at that moment like a boy, timorous and full of doubt. I bit my lip. I screwed up my courage. "I suppose it's just as well we've met. There's something I must tell you. This won't be easy…"

" 'Quickest done is best done,' " Meto said, quoting the proverb I had taught him as a child, suitable to pulling thorns or drinking foul medicine. He kept his eyes lowered, but his lips formed a faint, ingratiating smile. I tried to ignore it.

"The reason I came to Egypt…"

He lifted his eyes to meet mine. I looked away.

"Bethesda has been unwell for quite some time," I said. "Some malady the physicians could never put a name to. She conceived a notion, that if only she could bathe in the Nile…"

Meto frowned. "Is Bethesda here in Egypt with you?"

My tongue turned to lead. I tried to swallow but could not. "Bethesda came to Egypt. She bathed in the Nile, as she wished. But the river took her from me. She vanished."

"What are you saying, Papa? Did she drown?"

"The river took her. Perhaps it was best, if her sickness was incurable. Perhaps it was what she intended all along."

"Bethesda is dead?" His lips quivered. His brows drew together. The son who was no longer my son, the favorite of Caesar who had seen men die by the thousands, who had hacked his way through drifts of dead bodies and mountains of gore, began to weep.

"Meto!" I whispered his name, but kept my distance.

"I never thought…" He shook his head. Tears streamed down his cheeks. "When you're far from home, you can't help but imagine what might be happening there, but you teach yourself to think of only good things. In the field, getting ready for battle, fighting a battle, tending to the aftermath, there's so much terror all around, so much confusion and bloodshed and suffering, that when you think of home you think of everything that's the opposite, a place that's safe and happy, where the people you love are all together and nothing ever changes. But of course that's a dream, a fantasy. Every place is the same as every other place. No one is safe, anywhere. But I never thought… that Bethesda…" He shot me an angry look. "I didn't even know she was ill. You might have told me in a letter-if you hadn't stopped writing me letters."

I drew back my shoulders and stiffened my spine. "There, then. I've told you. Bethesda is gone. Her body was lost, or else I would have mummified her, as was always her wish."

Meto shook his head, as if dazed. "And Diana? How is she? And little Aulus? And-"

"Your sister-" I corrected myself. "My daughter and her son were well when I left them in Rome. She's expecting another child, or else she might have come herself."

"And Davus? And Eco? And-"

"All are well," I said, wanting to end the conversation.

He sighed. "Papa, I know what a tribulation this must have been for you. I can only-"

"Say no more!" I said. "You needed to be told, and I've told you. Go back to Caesar now."

"Go back?" He laughed without mirth, even as he wiped a tear from his cheek. "Didn't you see the look on his face? And the look on her face? She's trouble. It's one thing, dealing with that starstruck boy-king and his eunuch, but I'm afraid Queen Cleopatra may be another matter altogether. I'll give her credit for sheer nerve-"

"I see how long your tears for Bethesda lasted. Now it's back to Caesar and the queen and whatever game the lot of you are up to."

"Papa! That's unfair."

"Think what you wish, but don't address me as your father."

He drew a sharp breath. He winced, as if I had turned a knife in his chest. "Papa!" he whispered, shaking his head. I could have sworn he was a child again, no older than ten or twelve, an uncertain boy clad in the armor of a warrior.

It took the last measure of my resolve to resist embracing him at that moment. Instead, I turned and strode resolutely down the hallway and then down the many flights of steps, leaving Meto to await the pleasure of his imperator and the queen.

CHAPTER XV

"You knew," I said to Merianis as we walked side by side through courtyards and past bubbling fountains, heading back to my room. She had been waiting for me at the checkpoint marking the boundary of the Roman enclave.

"You knew," I repeated, turning to look at her. "Thus your coy smile earlier. Thus your arch comment about surprises."

"Whatever are you talking about, Gordianus-called-Finder?" "You knew that another visitor besides myself was going to call on Caesar tonight."

"Who's being coy now?" she said. "Are you saying that you were joined at dinner by an unexpected guest?" She could not suppress a broad smile. Her white teeth, in contrast to the black luster of her flesh, were dazzling.

"A gift for Caesar arrived from an unexpected quarter."

"A gift?"

"A surprise with another surprise hidden inside. It was compared to the Trojan Horse."

Merianis laughed. "Did Caesar say that?"

I frowned. "No, it was one of his men."

"And was this Trojan Horse successfully delivered?"

"It was."

"Did the contents emerge safe and sound?"

"Yes, and just as ready to wreak havoc as those Greek invaders who jumped out of the real Trojan Horse. When I last saw him, Caesar looked poised to surrender to an overwhelming force."

Merianis clapped her hands with delight. "Forgive me for laughing, but the metaphor is so novel. It's always a woman who's described as a city under siege, with gates flung open and walls tumbling down. It makes me laugh to think of mighty Caesar that way."

"He's only human, Merianis."

"For the time being," Merianis said, then muttered something in Egyptian that I took to be a brief, ecstatic prayer of thanksgiving to Isis. A group of palace guards was waiting outside my room. Before I could step inside, the officer in charge politely, but firmly, ushered me to a place in the midst of his men, and I found myself heading off once again, leaving Merianis behind.

"I'll look in on Rupa and the boys," she called after me.

I was taken to a part of the palace I had not visited before. The corridors grew wider, the gardens more lush, the draperies and other appointments increasingly more magnificent.

The guards escorted me into a large chamber where scores of courtiers were clustered here and there in small groups. The room echoed with the low buzz of many conversations. Curious eyes peered in our direction. The officer in charge disappeared, leaving me to stand idly in the middle of the room with an armed escort surrounding me.

"It's that Roman," I overheard someone say. "The one the king allowed onto his barge. Isn't he a soothsayer?"

"No, some sort of spy, or maybe a famous assassin, I think."