He stood in the dusty street, cursing himself. He had no idea when Chrysate would wake, and when she did, his time for searching would be done.

At last he found a few men, strong and scarred, napping in the backroom of a bar. He shouted, and the men’s heads lurched up from their table. It was not the entrance he would have chosen.

“Attention!”

They blinked in the dusty air. Drunkards. Antony had been a drunkard himself on occasion. He knew how they felt, and so he made his voice all the louder.

“Defenders of Alexandria!”

The men squinted.

In a flash, Antony appeared before them, and they gasped, pushing themselves back, stumbling over chairs in their haste to escape him. He looked suspiciously at the state of their muscles. The year since Alexandria had made them fat, but this was the best he could do on short notice. If he’d had time, he might have searched throughout the world, located his true friends, found the strongest men, but he had only until tomorrow evening to save Cleopatra.

“Your commander calls on you,” he said. “Your commander charges you with action.”

“How do we know who you are?” asked one of the soldiers, his cup spilled before him.

“Do you doubt me? I am Mark Antony,” Antony said.

One of the legionaries grinned.

“You look like him, I won’t deny that,” he said. “And you sound like him. Who’s playing us for fools? Show yourself!”

Antony grimaced. Soldiers were not easy to force into sobriety, nor were they impressed by the impossible.

They would be easier to bribe than command, in this condition.

“I want to hire you,” he said. “Tomorrow night, at the Circus Maximus. You will appear there, armed, and await my signal. There is a woman —” He hesitated and decided not to name Cleopatra. “Who must be protected from other soldiers. You will keep her safe.”

“How much?”

“Enough to keep you in whores until you die,” Antony said.

“And drink?”

“Who do you take me for? It will keep you in drink as well,” Antony said.

“Then I’m your man,” said the legionary, “whoever you are.” The others nodded, and Antony explained what he needed from them. At last, when he had made himself clear, sworn them to sobriety, and promised gold to them, he made his way from the bar and out into the street. He had more to accomplish, and this time he would improve on his performance.

In the private, tiled room where the senators sat, taking their afternoon steam bath, the walls were warm and slippery with oil. The vapor surrounding the men hung as thick as fog, and their voices echoed, disembodied, from out of the clouds. The senators had installed themselves far from the ears of the emperor and his dearest general.

“He claims to be descended from Apollo, though we all knew his mother, Atia, and she was nothing a god would touch, even accidentally in the dark while fumbling around on the temple floor, looking for something better,” muttered one of the senators.