Brutus looked back calmly. “We were under attack,” he said with a shrug.

Cleopatra was speechless for a moment. She turned cold eyes on Julius. “Your men must stop it before it spreads.”

Julius frowned at her tone and she seemed to sense the irritation that was building in him.

“Please, Julius,” she said, more gently.

He nodded and signaled to his generals to attend him. “I will do what I can,” he said, troubled by her flashing changes of mood. She had lost a brother and regained her throne, he thought. Much could be forgiven on such a day.

Cleopatra did not leave until royal guards had brought a shaded platform for her, lifting it onto their shoulders as she lay back. Their faces were proud, Julius saw, as they bore their queen to her palace.

“Have trenches dug for the dead, Octavian,” Julius ordered, watching her departure. “Before they spoil in the heat. The Fourth had better make their way to the docks to see to this fire.”

As he spoke a cold cinder floated above his head, riding the breeze. He watched as it settled, still dazed by events. The boy king who had clung to his arm was dead. The battle was won.

He did not know if they would have achieved victory without the queen’s intervention. The veteran legions were growing old and could not have fought on for long against the rising sun. Perhaps Cleopatra’s slave would have brought reinforcements, or perhaps Julius would have bled his life out on Egyptian sand.

In her absence, he felt an ache start in him. He could smell her scent over the bitter taste of burnt air. He had known her as a woman. To see her as a queen had disturbed and enthralled him, from the moment the crowd and soldiers had knelt in the dirt at her word. He looked after the procession heading for the palace and wondered how the citizens of Rome would react if he brought her home.

“We are free to leave,” Octavian said. “To Rome, Julius.”

Julius looked at him and he smiled. He could not imagine leaving Cleopatra behind. “I have fought for more years than I can remember,” he said. “Rome will wait a little longer, for me.”

Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

The great library of Alexandria burned as the sun rose, thousands of scrolls making a furnace so hot that the soldiers of Rome could not come close to it. Marble columns raised by Alexander split and shattered in the furnace of a million thoughts and words. The men of the Fourth legion formed bucket chains to the docks, struggling against the sun and exhaustion until they were numb and their blistered skin was red and black with cinders. The closest buildings had been stripped and their walls and roofs saturated, but the library could not be saved.