The Triumphant (The Valiant #3)(41)

“Majesty,” I choked out, swallowing hard against the knot in my throat and bowing my head to hide my dismay.

Wordlessly, she shifted her attention back to her breakables.

I hovered there in the doorway, wondering if I shouldn’t just turn around and leave the queen alone. I wondered if I should attempt some kind of . . . what? Comfort? Commiseration? I had, truthfully, no idea. The most powerful woman in the world had just lost her great love—the most powerful man in the world—to hideous violence. I had no idea what she was feeling.

Except, perhaps, pure, incandescent, ice-cold rage . . .

“I would have every last one of them strung up in the desert to be flayed alive by sandstorms,” I heard her say as she picked up a blue glass perfume bottle and hurled it at the wall. It smashed into a thousand pieces, filling the room with a heady waft of cypress and lotus blossom. She picked up a pot of cheek rouge next. “I would carve out their eyes with my own golden knife and feed them to the vultures, one by one.” Another smash, another stain on the wall.

I didn’t know if she was speaking to me, or to the air, or to the gods themselves. But it sounded as if she had been uttering these variations of a death curse with each bauble or bit of crockery sacrificed.

“I would fill their mouths with scorpions and seal their lips with molten lead.” She picked up a hand mirror made of solid polished silver and, with one last heave, launched it at the wall. When it made a dull thud and only cracked off a chunk of plaster instead of shattering, Cleopatra sighed—a sound halfway between disappointment and exhaustion—and sank down on the couch, her fury seemingly spent. For the moment, at least.

She turned and beckoned me forward again with a wave of her hand.

Before joining her, I searched a side table and found the one small wine jug she hadn’t obliterated in her rage and two exquisite, lapis-inlaid goblets. I poured out two measures, handing one to the queen, then sat on the couch opposite hers and waited.

She took a sip and nodded thanks.

“Tell me, Fallon.” She gazed down at the dark kohl stains on the dress she wore, plucking at them as if she couldn’t quite figure out how they got there. “Did he die honorably?”

Very honorably, I wanted to say. He went down fighting like the conqueror he was, wresting a blade from the hands of his assailants and drawing more blood than he spilled . . .

Except I couldn’t. I owed her the truth, however ugly and horrid it was.

“No,” I said. “There was no honor in it, Majesty. It was cheap and it was dirty and Caesar stood no chance. Sheer numbers took your lord. His attackers were like a pack of hyenas on a lion, and you are right to curse the heads of every single one of the filthy curs responsible.”

She nodded. “Thank you. I wanted to know the truth before everyone tells me how valiant my lord was in the moments before they cut him down.” She drank from the cup I’d given her. “Did you recognize any of them? Caesar’s murderers?”

I hesitated. In truth, I’d be hard-pressed to identify a single senator at a triumphal parade even if they wore plaques hanging from their necks with their names written on them. I told Cleopatra as much, apologetically. But then I also told her of how I had recognized Pontius Aquila—and how he’d slithered out of the shadows like a snake after the terrible deed was done.

She wasn’t the least bit surprised.

But then I remembered one other thing. One other face.

“Marcus Junius Brutus . . .”

Cleopatra repeated the name after me, pronouncing each syllable like an invocation of his impending doom. I told her what Kronos had reported. About Brutus’s impromptu funeral orations—and Antony’s rabble-rousing rebuttal—and how it had inflamed the mob and resulted in the direct opposite reaction the conspirators had been hoping for. That almost brought a smile to her face. I picked up the little wine jug and refilled the queen’s goblet.

“I still find it hard to believe,” I said, “that a man like Brutus would have anything to do with this kind of perfidy.” I shook my head. “He is, by every account, an honorable man.”

“Caesar certainly thought so,” Cleopatra said flatly. “Brutus was dear to him. Almost like a son.”

“I would have expected it more from a creature like Antony.”

But she wagged a finger at me saying, “Honorable men, Fallon, are often the ones who are easiest to manipulate. All you have to do is turn their sense of justice against their better judgment.” She laughed bitterly. “As for Antony, he is a politician and a survivor. He has his own dearly held vices and he doesn’t need to participate in anyone else’s. In fact, to do so would probably just get in his way—Antony worships Antony alone. It’s one of the things I admire about him.”

I was silent for a moment. Then I said, “You know we have to leave soon?”

“Yes, I know,” she sighed. “I must flee the Republic like a guilty thief and disappear into the night. Sennefer has already descended upon me like a flock of pecking hens and told me of this plan of yours and Sorcha’s.” A wan grin touched her lips. “Thank you, Fallon, for having a care for this poor bedraggled queen.”

“You are hardly that.”

“Don’t flatter, dear. I looked into that mirror before I threw it at the wall.” She shook her head, and the golden beads woven into her hair flickered like sparks. “Sennefer also told me we’ll be traveling light. I thought, since I won’t be bringing any of this with me . . .” She waved a hand at the shattered remains of her usual complement of worldly comforts. Then she tossed back the rest of her wine and hurled the goblet to the floor.