"Courage, Zenobia!" Dagian chided gently. "Our return to Rome reassures Aurelian that you truly no longer want Marcus. If you complain to him he will be suspicious. In another week or two the army marches, and with it goes the emperor. You will be free then, my daughter." She put her arms around Zenobia, cradling her against her ample bosom.

"I am so afraid," Zenobia admitted, suddenly weeping. "I fear that Aurelian will find us out, and prevent Marcus and me from being together. We have waited so long, Dagian, so very long!"

"You were meant to be together," Dagian soothed. "Do not fear, my daughter. Prudence will prevent the emperor from knowing our plans. The gods will see to it."

"The gods are capricious," Zenobia whispered.

"Hush, my daughter!" Dagian looked fearfully about her as if she might see an angry god.

Then as suddenly as she had been fearful, Zenobia became calm again. "You are right, Dagian, and I am behaving like a child. We are so close to victory."

The two women embraced a final time, and then each went her separate way. A few days later the Alexanders, mother and son, left the imperial villa in Tivoli to return to their own home in Rome. Although Marcus Alexander had sold the great trading house that had been his father's, he still had many contacts among the important commercial families. Among them was the son of one of the wealthy Palmyran families slain in the destruction of that city. With Palmyra's fall, the young man had found himself alone and without a market for his goods. He might have gone bankrupt had not Marcus Alexander stepped in and come to his aid. Marcus called in the debt owed, and the young Palmyran was eager to help. Ogga ben Yorkhai was his name, and he had friends in Cyrene with whom he was in constant contact. Now he dispatched his pigeon messengers to that city, and within ten days came word that Vaballathus preferred to remain in imperial captivity than to brave the dangers of escape with his wife and infant daughter.

Marcus knew how disappointed Zenobia would be, but in truth he was relieved. The young man would always remember what he had lost, always unconsciously blame his mother, and between them there would never be any real peace.

A happier note, however, was word that Vaba's brother had been found alive in the ruins of Palmyra by the Bedawi. There had been some half-dozen survivors of the massacre, a woman, four children, and Demi, all of whom had been left for dead. The tribesmen had taken them back to their encampment, and although one of the children had died several days later, the rest had survived. Demi knew that his brother now resided in Cyrene, and that his mother was in Rome. He preferred, he wrote to Vaba, to remain with their uncle Akbar and the Bedawi. If he could not live in Palmyra, now destroyed, he preferred to roam the desert as his ancestors had done. He already had his eye on a strong young girl of fourteen to take to wife once he could earn her bridesprice.

So, Marcus thought as he read the letter from Cyrene, we will start anew, just Zenobia and our daughter and me. We will shed our old lives as the lizard sheds its old skin.

The army's departure was scheduled for the following day. Marcus Alexander Britainus wondered if Aurelian would change his mind at the last moment, and attempt to take Zenobia with him. They had not seen or spoken to one another in over a month. Although his mother had assured him before they left Tivoli that all was well, even Dagian had not seen or communicated with Zenobia in the last few weeks. That afternoon Gaius Cicero came to see him, and Marcus welcomed his old friend warmly.

"Once more," Gaius smiled, "I must ask that you watch over my Clodia and our children while I am away. Clodia is increasing again. Another child I shall not see born," he said ruefully.

"Why do you not resign the army, Gaius? Your family is wealthy, and although your older brother is the heir there is time for you to make a name for yourself in politics. Surely you do not really believe that Aurelian has a long future as Rome's emperor?"

"This is my last campaign," Gaius admitted. "I must think of my family now. As to the emperor, I'll admit I do not know how much longer he can hold on. He is a fine general, a good administrator; but he lacks subtlety. He makes enemies too easily. Take this temple of the Unconquerable Sun of his. He has foresworn the old gods for this strange new religion, and the truth of the matter is it is a scandal.

"After this last triumph he held a fertility rite in his temple. He mated upon the high altar with Palmyra's queen, and then took fifteen more women before he was sated. I know several of the men who attend these rites. They do so for purely licentious reasons. They were extremely annoyed that they could not take the captive queen. Usually Aurelian, who calls himself the god on earth, allows his fellow worshipers to have a go at his woman when he has finished. This night, however, he would not. He claims that Zenobia is the goddess upon earth, and it was foretold that he should get a child upon her that night. He said he did not want his seed defiled by others.

"Just as well, if you ask me. They say that Zenobia fainted and could not be roused for several days from her stupor. Poor woman. She had taken a great deal from Aurelian, and this surely was the worst. The rumor is that he intends to make Palmyra's queen his empress when Ulpia Severina has died."

"Yes," Marcus said in a strangely calm voice. "I have heard that rumor." Keep calm, his inner self warned him. Gaius is your friend, but first he is loyal to Aurelian. Although there were many questions he wanted to ask, he instead changed the subject, pretending lack of interest in Zenobia and Aurelian. He could not be sure that Gaius did not spy for the emperor. "I shall most happily keep Clodia company, Gaius. She is a fine wife and mother in the old tradition, and you are fortunate to have her."

"Why don't you marry?" Gaius asked suddenly.

Marcus laughed. "Because there is no one I love, and I cannot settle for less. My brother will perpetuate our family name, and so there is no need for me to marry. Besides, I prefer my freedom."

"Yes, I have known a few men like you, Marcus," Gaius said. "Some men are like that." He rose. "I shall be on my way now. I thank you for your kindness to my wife and my children. My brother simply doesn't have time to bother with Clodia, and she does get lonely." The two men clasped hands in the traditional Roman salute, and then Gaius was gone, his quick, "Farewell," echoing and then dying.

Marcus sat down heavily once Gaius Cicero was gone, and his mind raced back to his friend's discussion of Aurelian's cult. The emperor had publicly taken Zenobia! Marcus shuddered with the horror of it. He wanted to strangle Aurelian, feel his thick neck beneath his fingers, watch as his face grew purple, as he gasped his last few breaths, as he died!

Feeling the violence welling up within him, he rose quickly and shut the library door. Then turning back into the room, he began systematically to destroy everything in it. Furiously he flung the furniture against the beautiful frescoed walls! Every piece of pottery was smashed, and only the book scrolls escaped destruction due to Dagian's timely entry into the library.

"Marcus!" She looked about her, horrified at the terrible disaster the room had become. "Marcus, what is it?"

Somehow through the red mists of his fury he heard her, and slowly his glazed eyes cleared. "It was either this or I would have killed him!" he said.

Dagian did not need to ask who. She simply inquired, "Why?"

He told her, and Dagian's eyes quickly filled with tears. "Poor Zenobia," she said softly, and then, "Marcus, you are not angry at Zenobia?"

"No, Mother, I am angry for her. Rome is truly a sewer, and none of us belongs here any longer. The gods only know how badly I want to take Zenobia from this place."

"You will have to wait until Aurelian has embarked from Brindisi, Marcus, and then it will be another week after he has left. We cannot at this late date take the chance of anyone discovering our plans. You must remain calm, my son."

"I know, Mother, but when I heard what he had done to my wife… The gods curse him! I hope he never returns to Rome. I hope they kill him!"

Aurelian, however, at that moment was far from dead. At Zenobia's villa in Tivoli, he held his beautiful captive within the circle of his arms and kissed her passionately. She forced herself to eagerly return his kisses, nibbling teasingly at his lips to further arouse his desires. His hands fondled her full breasts, taunting the nipples to hard peaks. "You are so beautiful," he murmured against her ear, and she purred against him in apparent satisfaction. "Do you know yet, goddess?" he asked her. "Can you be sure yet whether you carry my child?"

"It is much too soon, Caesar," she said, and then she lowered her eyes coyly. "I promise to send a message to you the moment I can be certain. These things cannot be rushed, Roman."

"I do not like leaving you, goddess, but I do not want you exposed to the rigors of travel in your condition."

"I understand, Caesar," she replied, "and I agree with you. 1 am not a maiden in the first flush of her womanhood. It is better this way."

"If only I could be sure!" He was so anxious, and for a brief moment Zenobia almost felt sorry for him. Then she remembered the rites, those unholy rites he had held within his Temple of the Unconquerable Sun, publicly shaming her.

"You were so virile and potent that night, Roman," she murmured wickedly. "Surely if it is written you cannot doubt the outcome?"

"No, no!" he answered, visibly upset lest his lack of faith cause the gods to turn upon him. "No, you are with child, I am certain!"

"Then kiss me again, Aurelian, and be on your way, for the sooner you leave me the sooner you will return to me-and to our child." She looked him straight in the face now, her silvery-gray eyes dancing with their haunting golden lights. Never had he seen her so beautiful, he thought. Swiftly his mouth descended on her, possessing her lips fiercely, but she would not be subdued, and kissed him as fiercely in return. He was strangely breathless when they parted.

"The gods go with you, Roman," she said.

He could do nothing but leave her now, but he did so feeling strangely dissatisfied. Climbing into his chariot, he turned to look at her once more, and the sight of Zenobia in her flaming red kalasiris, her long black hair blowing free in the afternoon breeze, her proud head held high, was a vision that remained with him. He raised his hand in a gesture of farewell, then slapped the reins upon his horses' rumps, and departed, his chariot wheels rumbling up the drive and onto the Via Flaminia.

She also raised her hand in farewell, wondering if he could hear her laughter following him. "I will never see you again, Roman, and may my memory haunt you through all eternity!" she cried softly, and then she whirled around and re-entered her house.

The time went slowly, the days long and dull, the nights longer and lonely. The only relief for Zenobia during this period was her monthly show of blood. She had never truly believed that the emperor could father a child upon her when he had never before sired one; but the insanity of the Temple of the Unconquerable Sun had left her shaken.

The Praetorian guards about her villa were removed at her request to the senate through Claudius Tacitus.

"I have no wish to cause the government undue expense on my behalf when it is not really necessary," she told him. "It is enough that Rome houses me."

"Perhaps," Tacitus said, "it may soon be possible for you to have your complete freedom, my dear. The senate, however, needs certain assurances." His kindly old face was bland with detachment.

"What assurances?" she demanded.

"The emperor made some rather interesting statements concerning your condition prior to his departure; and there was some gossip about fertility rites in his Temple of the Unconquerable Sun several weeks back."

"If you are referring, Tacitus, to the night in which I was drugged and then raped by the emperor upon the high altar of his temple, then allow me to assure you that nothing came of that night other than my acute sense of shame. Aurelian chose to believe that I was carrying his child before he departed. I chose to allow him to believe it so I might be spared the boredom of accompanying him to Byzantium. If the senate does not believe me then let them question my women, or call a physician in to examine me. I am not with child."

"Do you love Aurelian?" Tacitus asked bluntly.