M. Scott: Rome: The Emperor's spy

‘I also said that Mergus has orders to do whatever it takes to keep them safe. When he finds them, he’ll take them to the forum.’

‘What if he doesn’t find them?’

‘Tonight, I am prefect of the Watch. As soon as we can leave here, I’ll find them.’

In his mind, Pantera was already out in the charred streets, setting the Watch — his Watch — to find a Sibyl with black hair and the scent of lilies. He didn’t think she would be dead; she was too clever for that.

We were lovers… Earlier, at the height of her passion, Hannah had spoken a word and he had not heard it. Only now did he know it as a name. He closed his eyes and then opened them again, staring up at the ceiling.

‘Don’t. Please.’

Hannah caught his hair, painfully, and brought his head round to hers. A dozen heartbeats ago, he would have loved her for that, and met her with his own power. Now, his gaze skidded over her face.

She pulled him back a second time. ‘Please… I need to be truthful, that’s all. What’s this’ — her sweeping arm took in the bed, and shut out the world — ‘without truth? Neither of us comes to this unscarred, or completely whole. We are who we are. Don’t let it destroy us. Please.’

‘But you love her.’

‘And you love Aerthen.’

‘Who is dead. Hypatia is not.’

‘But here, now, she may as well be. Will you allow me to have a past, and believe me that it is past? Please?’ She said it more quietly this time, and reached across the finger’s-width gap that had become a chasm between them. ‘Some things are always going to be of her. And from tonight, some things will always be of you.’

He was in uncharted water, with nothing to show him the way. His attention was caught by the curve of her collar bones, by the shine of her sweat and his, caught in a stray shard of firelight, by the pool of dark just above it, curtained by the raw smoke-silk of her hair. Unthinking, he asked, ‘Has there ever been another man?’

‘Never.’ She squinted at him. ‘You?’

‘A man?’ Astonishingly, he found himself laughing. ‘I’ll make you a promise,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave your past alone if you’ll leave mine. How does that sound?’

‘It sounds good.’ She glanced down at him. ‘Did you know when Aerthen died?’

‘I killed her.’

She shut her eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. Are you telling me you’ll know if Hypatia dies?’

‘I hope so. It’s not happened yet, but she thought it would be soon and was trying not to be afraid.’ Her smile was infinitely sad. ‘Can we lie together again? Please?’

He lowered her down to lie on him, sternum to sternum. For a long time, they pressed together, motionless, skin on skin, so that he could feel her heartbeat against his own ribs.

He thought she had fallen asleep until abruptly she roused and, shaking herself like a dog out of water, propped up on her elbows and bent to kiss him.

He said, ‘Hannah, we don’t have to-’

‘I want to. Be still. Let me do this.’ Her kisses drifted down to his chest, to the scar of Mithras, and below it.

For a long time, he did lie still until it became unbearable not to move, and even then he waited until she made it clear beyond doubt what she wanted of him.

Then he was not still at all, and when they linked fingers again they were both aware of what they did, but lost in the wildness, with their pasts kept apart from the present, and when she arced up high over him, taut as a drawn bow, the name she spoke was clearly his, and he did not think of Aerthen.

‘Hannah? Can you wake? Someone’s coming.’ Pantera touched her shoulder. His face hovered over hers, bright with care, wet from washing in the ewer by the bed. He was sharply awake, scrubbed clean of the night’s fatigue. In the pale morning light, his age had receded ten years. Here, now, he was the man who had filled the quiet of her mind, in the nights of waiting before the fire.

One hand still lay on her shoulder, the thumb describing circles on her collar bone. His other held the knife Hannah had found strapped to his forearm in the early part of their time together. Only later, near dawn, had he allowed her to remove it, and then would not let her lay it far from the bed.

A sound came from the gate outside, of wood being broken. ‘The fire’s gone down enough to let them near the gate,’ Pantera said. ‘Someone’s taking an axe to the beam that’s blocking it.’

Hannah sat up, too quickly. ‘We can hide in the goose-house.’ The thought appalled her.

Pantera laughed, reading her face. ‘Not unless you want to.’ He leaned over to kiss her. The laughter was swiftly gone. He said, ‘I think it’s Ajax. Anyone else would come over the wall. It means we can start looking for Shimon and Hypatia.’

‘And Math,’ Hannah said.

‘And Math,’ he agreed.

She took his hand and let him raise her to her feet. He helped her to wash, found her a fresh tunic and laid it out, the one clean garment in the room. Blue irises worked in silk thread at hem and sleeves said it was Hypatia’s.

Hannah tied the belt of roped silk. From the window, she could see flames stitch the horizon to the south and west. Elsewhere, plumes of smoke bellied on the wind, but the raging fire-storm of the night was gone. Outside, the sounds of breaking wood were growing more urgent.

Pantera stood at the door, looking out. ‘When Ajax went to hunt Saulos, we didn’t know if you were still alive in here.’

‘So it would be a kindness to go to him now.’ The idea made her stomach lurch.

Pantera turned. His eyes sought her face. ‘Have you regrets?’ he asked.

‘None.’ She thought it was true.

He said, ‘It would be better to go out, I think, than to be found sitting side by side on the bed’s edge like errant children.’ Reaching out, he drew her into an embrace. His kiss mimicked Hypatia’s last kiss in the goose-house; full of hope and love and the bittersweet grief of parting.

Seneca saw her first: the dark-haired woman to whom he had lost both Ajax and Pantera.

Had he not been expecting her, he would barely have recognized the quiet physician of Coriallum. Here was a woman wrought fine and new, emerging from the wreckage of the fire as Athena from the waves.

Ajax hadn’t seen her yet. He was wielding the axe with a fury against the beam that blocked the gate. They had found only one axe, and even after the night they had both experienced, he still had more strength to wield it. The difference between them was less than it had been, though.

Seneca had set himself the task of cataloguing Ajax’s waning energy with scientific precision. As Aristotle had examined the bodies of dead and living animals for their secrets, so Seneca was bringing the same objectivity to his study of his night’s companion.

Thus it was that he had moved a little to one side as the beam began to fall from the gate, and so saw Hannah before Ajax did, and saw her see him, and saw the sudden ache written across her face, sharp and sore as a knife’s cut. He saw it wiped clear as fast as it appeared so that when Ajax paused to sluice the sweat from his eyes and chanced to look through the gap, she was smiling for him in greeting.

‘Ajax.’

‘Hannah.’

They were formal as distant cousins. Then Hannah moved and Seneca saw what Ajax had already seen: that Pantera stood beside Hannah, and that he, too, was rendered clean and clear by the dawn, and was just as uneasy in Ajax’s presence.

‘Saulos is still alive.’ Ajax addressed Pantera, sparing them both. ‘He led us back to Math. We had a choice to leave and follow Saulos, or to stay and keep watch over the children. We chose the latter.’