Emperor: The Blood of Gods (Special Edition) (Emperor Series, Book 5) by Conn Iggulden Page B

shoulder at the two women lounging on a nearby bench. Mark Antony was seized by a sudden desire to grab her and shake her out of her lethargy. Half the forum had been destroyed. The Senate were forced to meet in Pompey’s theatre while the seat of government lay in rubble and ashes, and still he was being treated like a servant! His big hands clenched and unclenched.
    ‘Consul, do you know why this temple was founded?’ she asked softly.
    Mark Antony shook his head, his eyebrows raising in disbelief. Could she not understand what he needed?
    ‘It was raised to house the Palladium, the statue of Athena that was once the heart of Troy. The goddess guided her likeness to Rome and we have been its guardians for centuries, do you understand? In that time, we have seen riots and unrest. We have seen the walls of Rome herself threatened. We have watched the army of Spartacus march past and seen Horatius go out to hold the bridge with just two men against an army.’
    ‘I don’t … What has this to do with the will of Caesar?’
    ‘It means that time passes slowly within these walls, Consul. Our traditions go back to the founding of the city and I will not change them because of a few dead rioters and a
consul who thinks he can give orders here
!’
    Her voice had hardened and grown louder as she spoke and Mark Antony raised his hands, trying to placate the suddenly angry woman before him.
    ‘Very well, you have your traditions. Nonetheless, I must have the will. Have it brought to me.’
    ‘No, Consul.’ She held up a hand herself to forestall his protest. ‘But it will be read aloud in the forum on the last day of the month. You will hear it then.’
    ‘But …’ He hesitated under her stare and took a deep breath. ‘As you say then,’ he said through a clenched jaw. ‘I am disappointed you saw no value in gaining the support of a consul.’
    ‘Oh, they come and go, Mark Antony,’ she replied. ‘
We
remain.’

CHAPTER FOUR
     

     
    Octavian woke in the late morning, feeling as if he had drunk bad red wine. His head pounded and his clenching stomach made him weak, so he had to lean against a wall and gather his strength as Fidolus brought out his horse. He wanted to vomit to clear his head, but there was nothing to bring up and he had to struggle not to heave dryly, making his head swell and hammer with the effort. He knew he needed a run to force blood back into his limbs, to force
out
the shame that made him burn. As the house slave went back inside for the saddle, Octavian pounded his thigh with a closed fist, harder and harder until he could see flashing lights whenever he closed his eyes. His weak flesh! He had been so careful after the first time, telling himself that he had caught some infection in a scratch, or some illness from the sour air in Egypt. His own men had found him insensible then, but they had assumed he’d drunk himself unconscious and saw nothing too odd in that, with Caesar feting the Egyptian queen along the Nile.
    He could feel a bruise begin to swell the muscle of his leg. Octavian wanted to shout out his anger. To be let down by his own body! Julius had taught him it was just a tool, like any other, to be trained and brought to heel like a dog or a horse. Yet now his two friends had seen him while he was … absent. He muttered a prayer to the goddess Carna that his bladder had not released this second time. Not in front of them.
    ‘Please,’ he whispered to the deity of health. ‘Cast it out of me, whatever it is.’
    He had woken clean and in rough blankets, but his memory ceased with the scroll from Rome. He could not take in the new reality. His mentor, his protector, had been killed in the city, his life ripped from him where he should have been safest. It was impossible.
    Fidolus passed the reins into his hands, looking worriedly at the young man who stood shaking in the morning sun.
    ‘Are you well, master? I can fetch a doctor from the town if you are ill.’
    ‘Too much