AC II Chapter 20 The Price of Silence

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After Mara and the Therapeutae depart, Sophia, Adam, Loukia and Kaliope share a meal by the fire with Targitus.  He explains what happened after he vanished at Mamshit.  Riding with his eagle, Zephyria, Targitus discovered Camilla, Scarus and Theron staggering through the desert and brought them water; they were nearly dead, Camilla burning with fever, and Scarus carrying her.  Targitus stayed in Mamshit until Camilla recovered, then watched the star‑walkers from the sky.  Through Zephyria’s eyes he saw them enter Jerusalem and Bethlehem and witnessed the massacre of the infants; he also saw Mary and Joseph flee.  Just as he finishes, Camilla, Scarus and Theron step into the firelight, alive and travel‑stained, and there is a joyous reunion.

Theron then narrates.  He admits that his complaining concealed fear and that only Targitus’s help kept them alive.  He also recounts their stay in Mamshit and Camilla’s gradual recovery.  The story then shifts back to Alexandria.  Prefect Gaius Turranius privately confronts Honourius, accusing him of rescuing the Vestal Tullia and fathering a secret child, Sophia.  The prefect proposes blackmail: he will expose the scandal unless Honourius gives him half the profits of the lucrative Indian and African trade and marries Sophia to him.  Honourius realises that the real price of silence is his daughter’s freedom.

To prevent the prefect from destroying Sophia, Honourius stages an “accident.”  He invites Turranius onto a royal barge on the Nile, having secretly weakened the hull.  As the vessel breaks apart mid‑river, he tells the prefect that he promised silence and now the Nile will keep him from Sophia, then drags him into the water.  Both disappear beneath the river, and Honourius’s last thought before drowning is a plea for forgiveness.  In Alexandria the catastrophe is treated as a tragic accident.  Theron and Scarus hear that the barge sank and that the prefect’s body was never found; they realise Honourius sacrificed himself to protect his daughter and that Rome will soon send a harsher emissary.  Determined to reach the Star Walkers before Rome does, they travel under cover of night.

Theron, Scarus and Sophia head east to find the Star Walkers.  They avoid major roads, buy information with wine and rumours and eventually reach a dangerous crossroads near Gaza controlled by Nabataean and Idumean fighters.  When told the road is closed, Theron negotiates safe passage by offering gold “for interrupting your watch,” more gold for the wine they will claim to have denied, and a sealed blank parchment as a promise that Gaza will remember nothing.  When one of his companions remarks that he bought silence, Theron replies, “No. I rented forgetfulness,” observing that fear travels faster than messengers.  Behind them, Gaza returns to its layered loyalties, while ahead the Star Walkers move on, unaware that their path has been purchased.

Theron standis before Sophia, announcing that Honourius wrote a final message for her and ne now delivers it into her hands.

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