Thus Marcus Alexander Britainus knew when Aurelian had reached Palmyra. He knew when Zenobia was captured. He knew when Vaballathus opened the city's gates to the emperor; and he knew when his many friends on the Council of Ten were executed. He knew of the young king's exile to Cyrene, and he knew of Palmyra's revolt and total destruction.

He lived in helpless agony as each communiqué was given him. The word if grew larger in his mind with each message. If only he had not left her. It had never occurred to him that such tragedy would happen in his absence. He shook his head at the reckless bravery that had caused Zenobia to try and reach Persia. How like her. She would not have sent her younger son, or a ranking officer in her army. No, she would go because she felt it her duty. Her duty to Palmyra, as he had obeyed his duty to his family.

He had no illusions as to her fate at Aurelian's hands. How could the emperor not desire her? She was the most beautiful, the most seductive, the most intelligent and interesting of women. He wondered if Zenobia had resisted Aurelian; or if she now enjoyed the emperor as a bed partner. The pictures that this thought raised in his mind provoked such pure fury that he could have killed; but he could not decide whether it would be Aurelian or Zenobia, or both, who would fall victim to his righteous wrath!

Dagian might have returned to Britain, but she now chose not to do so. Marcus, she believed, needed her far more than Aulus and his family. There would be time to go back, but now was not the time. With Palmyra destroyed and gone, his Eastern mercantile base was gone too, although Marcus was not impoverished. His faithful Severus had seen the handwriting on the wall, and taken it upon himself to sell everything Marcus possessed in Palmyra to another Palmyran house of commerce. He had left the city for Rome, Marcus's fortune transferred safely to Rome, shortly before Palmyra's demise.

Marcus had greeted him with pleasure when he arrived at the Tivoli villa. He was extremely relieved that the faithful Severus had escaped Palmyra's fate.

"I have saved your fortune, Marcus Alexander," the now elderly Severus said proudly. "Oh, I might have gotten more for you had I stayed longer, and haggled, but I could see we were in for serious trouble. Prince Demetrius would not cease his rebellion."

Marcus nodded his head. "Thank the gods for your instincts, Severus, or I should have been ruined. Palmyra was totally destroyed."

"Yes," came the reply, "I heard that news." A sad look came into his eyes. "It is so terribly tragic, Marcus Alexander. I shall miss that beautiful city."

"The queen, Severus. What of the queen?"

"She was well the last I heard," came the evasive reply.

"You know what I am asking of you, old friend," Marcus said low.

"Marcus Alexander, you know the grist from which rumors are ground. I put no faith in rumors, but if you would hear the chief rumor of Palmyra, when I left, regarding the queen, it was that Aurelian had taken her for his woman. Why do you ask me? You expected no less."

Marcus had sighed and left the room.

"We are relieved that you escaped Palmyra and have come home to us safely, Severus," Dagian said. "You must forgive my son. He is a very unhappy man."

"I can understand that, my lady," came Severus's understanding reply.

Aurelian and his army drew closer and closer to Rome with every passing day; and with each day Marcus grew more grim. Finally, when the emperor was expected momentarily, he told his mother, "I want my daughter. I don't give a damn what that Palmyran whore does, but I want my daughter. I recognized her as mine when she was born, and now I shall claim her. I will not have her raised in any house where Aurelian either lives or is a frequent visitor. Look what he did to Carissa! I won't allow him to do that to my child! Mavia is all that I have."

"You cannot take the child from her mother, Marcus," Dagian protested.

"She is your grandchild, Mother. Knowing Aurelian's influence on Carissa, do you want Mavia to suffer the same fate?"

"Mavia has a mother, Marcus. A very strong and wise mother. Aurelian will never harm the child as long as Zenobia lives. Besides, do you really believe that the queen will hand over her child to you? I somehow suspect that you are not in her good graces."

"She has no right to judge me," he said pompously.

"And you have no right to judge her, my son. It was you who left her, and then did not even bother to send an explanation of your marriage."

"How could I communicate with her, Mother? You know that the emperor had me watched, and every letter going from this house was intercepted and read."

"Marcus, you should have sent her a message as soon as you saw the emperor was adamant in his desire that you wed Carissa; but you did not. I am not blaming you, for you were distraught not only with your fate and your sudden inability to control it, but with your father's impending death. Zenobia, however, does not know these things. Think of how she must have felt if she loved you as you say she did."

"She should have known better than to believe that I would betray that love," Marcus muttered.

Dagian laughed. "I am willing to admit that your Zenobia is a paragon, my son, but even a paragon could not be expected to keep faith with a betrothed who marries another woman. Be reasonable, Marcus."

"I want my daughter."

"Would you place the strain of bastardy upon Mavia? If you claim to be her father and insist on having the child, that is what you will do. You will mark her as surely as if you placed a burning brand upon her forehead. Even if you adopt her formally into this family, she will still be remembered as the illegitimate daughter of Palmyra's queen and one of her Roman lovers. What kind of a marriage can we make for this child with that stain upon her innocent reputation? Have you become so callous in your own misery that you would mark your daughter in order to satisfy your own wishes?"

He looked terribly unhappy, and Dagian pitied him greatly, but she knew that she was right.

"What am I to do, Mother?" he asked.

"Let us just watch the situation with Zenobia, Marcus. Perhaps by the time they reach Rome Aurelian will have grown tired of her. We don't even know what the senate plans to do with her."

He grew pale. "You do not think that they would condemn her to death, do you?"

"Who can predict the capricious whims of politicians?" Dagian demanded. "Once they have won their place in the senate, they behave as if the gods themselves had placed them there. Only if the public outcry is dangerously great do they heed the people. They serve only their own interests. However, if Aurelian has any personal interest in the lady she may be saved serious consequences."

"You are telling me, Mother, that if Zenobia survives imperial judgment I must regain my lost ground with her and only then can I hope to have any part in my daughter's life."

"Yes, Marcus, I am. You will gain nothing, I suspect, by anger."

"What if she no longer cares for me?"

"You will have to begin at the beginning with Zenobia," Dagian said quietly.

"You sound as if you are on her side," he complained, somewhat irritably.

Dagian smiled, her mouth quirking upward with her genuine amusement, her lovely blue eyes twinkling. "Let us say, Marcus, that even having never met the lady, I like the sound of her. I believe she is going to make me a fine daughter-in-law."

Stunned, he gaped at her. "What makes you think that I will marry her now? After she has been the emperor's mistress?"

Dagian chuckled. "You men are so vain when it comes to your prowess. Are you afraid to be compared to Aurelian, my son? Since you conceived a daughter by Zenobia, I am sure the comparison is already made. Perhaps, though, you do not wish to know the results."

"Mother!" He was visibly embarrassed by her frankness.

"I am sure, Marcus, that if you forgive Zenobia for being Aurelian's captive, she will forgive you Aurelian's niece."

"I never touched Carissa!" he protested.

"In Zenobia's mind it will not matter if you did or not. You married her. That is far worse."

Marcus sighed with exasperation, and Dagian quietly left him to his thoughts. He was a good man, her son, and she knew that he was intelligent in many matters. In the matter of man and woman, however, Dagian decided that Marcus was a dunce. He would learn, though, and providing that the senate did not condemn Palmyra's queen to an unfair death, Dagian decided that she wouldn't miss what was going to transpire between Zenobia and Marcus for all the world.

Two days later, Aurelian and his army arrived outside of Rome's walls. The emperor went immediately to the senate, and was hailed a returning hero. A triumph, complete with a holiday, was ordered to celebrate his victory over Palmyra. One rather pompous senator, Valerian Hostilius, suggested that the highlight of the day might be the public execution of the Queen of Palmyra in the Colosseum.

"Her reputation is that of a warrior," he cried in his rather flutelike voice. "Let us dress this barbarian queen in lionskins, give her a golden spear, and have her fight to the death a pack of wild beasts! What a spectacle it will make for the people, Caesar!"

Aurelian yawned, then looked about the senate. What a perfumed bunch, he thought. "A fascinating suggestion, Valerian Hostilius," he said, "but the Queen of Palmyra has already suffered for her rashness in rebelling against us, and once she realized her mistake she strove to give us aid once more."

"Yet you were forced to destroy the city, Caesar. Why was that?" This time the speaker was Marcus Claudius Tacitus, an elderly but extremely competent senator. Tacitus's opinion would carry much weight in the senate's decision.