Last Seen in Massilia

VI

I must have lost consciousness, but only for a moment. I slowly woke to a confusion of voices surrounding me, speaking Greek-men's voice, old men, speaking on top of each other. The babble narrowed to an argument between two voices.

"But where in Hades did these two come from?"

"I'm telling you, they must have tunneled through. I saw when it happened-big bubbles in the moat, then a weird sucking sound, and then a whirlpool. Look how far the water's dropped!"

"Impossible! If a tunnel broke through, and the reservoir flooded it, how did these two swim against the current? It doesn't make sense. It's uncanny, the way they came flailing out of the water."

"You always look for religious explanations! Next you'll be saying Artemis coughed them up. They dug under the wall, I tell you."

"They don't look like sappers. They don't look much like soldiers, either."

"Oh, no? They're wearing helmets, aren't they? I say, kill them!"

"Shut up, you old coot. We'll hand them over to the soldiers when they get here."

"Why wait? Do you imagine these two would think twice before cutting down a group of old Massilians gabbing in the market square?"

"They look harmless."

"Harmless? Those are swords in their scabbards, you idiot. Here, you fellows, help me take their weapons. Take their helmets, too." I felt myself jostled about on the sand and heard splashes nearby.

"Look, the older one's coming to his senses. He's opening his eyes."

I blinked and looked up to see a circle of old men staring down at me. Some drew back in alarm. Their consternation almost made me laugh. The simple fact of being alive made me feel giddy. "Argue all you want," I said, mustering my Greek. "Just don't throw me back."

My Greek may have been rusty and my accent uncouth, but that hardly justified the onslaught that followed.

The most belligerent of the old men-the one who'd argued to kill us on the spot-began to thrash me with a cane. He was a skinny, bony creature, but he had surprising strength. I covered my head with my arms. He deliberately aimed for my elbows.

"Stop this! Stop at once!" The voice was a new one, a man's. It came from a short distance away. "Slaves, restrain that horrible old man."

My attacker backed away, slashing his cane to fend off two half-naked giants who suddenly loomed over me. The old man was furious. "Damn you to Hades, Scapegoat! If your slaves lay a finger on me, I'll report you to the Timouchoi."

"Oh, really? You forget, old man, I'm untouchable." The voice was high-pitched, harsh, and grating.

"For now, maybe. But what about later? Eh, Scapegoat? When the time comes to put an end to you, I swear I'll kick you off the Sacrifice Rock myself."

There were gasps from the circle of old men. "Calamitos, you've gone too far!" said the one who'd been arguing with him. "The goddess-"

"Artemis has abandoned Massilia, in case you haven't noticed-as well she might, given the impiousness of this wretched city. Caesar pinches us in a vise, and what solution do the Timouchoi come up with? A scapegoat to take on the city's sins! So now we starving citizens shrivel to scarecrows while that scarecrow grows fatter every day." The old man threw his cane against the ground so hard it broke in two. He stalked off in a fury.

"Blessed Artemis! The old coot can't help being ugly and bad mannered, but there's no need to be blasphemous as well." I strained my neck and saw that the voice of my rescuer came from a nearby litter attended by a retinue of bearers. "Slaves! Pick up those two fellows and put them here in the litter with me.

The slaves looked down at me dubiously. One of them shrugged. "Master, I'm not sure the bearers can carry all three of you in the litter. The big one looks awfully heavy. I'm not even sure he's alive."

I rolled toward Davus, alarmed. He lay motionless on his back, his eyes shut, his face pale. A moment later, to my relief, he coughed and his eyelids fluttered.

"If the burden's too much, then you'll simply have to run home and fetch more slaves to carry us," said my mysterious protector, his grating voice made more grating by exasperation.

"Wait, Scapegoat!" The cooler-headed of the two old men who had been arguing over me stepped forward. "You can't simply run off with these men. They've come from outside the city. That one spoke Greek with a Roman accent. Despite his blasphemy, Calamitos was right about one thing-they might be dangerous. For all we know, they're assassins, or spies. We must hand them over to the soldiers."

"Nonsense. Am I not the scapegoat, duly chosen by the priests of Artemis and invested by the Timouchoi? For the duration of the crisis, all godsends are mine, to dispose of as I see fit. That includes fish washed up on the shores of Massilia-and I hereby claim these two stranded fish. No doubt they were cast upon this man-made beach by Artemis herself. The big one looks like a beached whale."

"The fellow's mad!" muttered one of the old men.

"But legally he may be right," said another. "Godsends do belong to the scapegoat…"

While the old men argued among themselves, strong arms scooped me up and swung me around. I was in no condition either to resist or assist. They carried me like dead weight. In glimpses I took in my surroundings. We were in a corner of the city. Looming over us were the high walls of Massilia, very different when seen from within, for they were lined with platforms and crisscrossed with stairways, and at their foot was the half-drained reservoir from which we had emerged. A little ways off, twin towers flanked the massive bronze gate that was the main entrance into the city. Past the gate the wall bent sharply back and fronted the harbor, for beyond that stretch of wall I saw the tops of ships' masts.

I was carried toward a litter, which sat alone in the middle of the large square that opened off the main gate. All the buildings facing the square appeared empty. Windows were shuttered; shops were closed. Except for the litter bearers, there was hardly a person in sight.

The green curtains of the litter parted. I was gently placed upon a bed of' green cushions. Opposite me, reclining among more cushions, was my rescuer. He was dressed in a green chiton that matched the cushions and the curtains of the litter; so much green was confusing. His gangly limbs seemed too long for the space; he had to bend his knees up sharply to accommodate me. He was thick in the middle, but his face was gaunt. The hair on his head was pale and thin. A narrow strip of wispy beard outlined his sharp chin.

A moment later, the two slaves who had carried me, joined by two others from among the bearers, managed to carry Davus to the litter. I moved over and they deposited him beside me. He looked about, bleary-eyed.

The stranger seemed to find us amusing. His thin lips curved into a smile and there was laughter in his dull gray eyes. "Welcome to Massilia, whoever you are!"

He clapped his hands. The litter was hoisted aloft. I felt nauseous. Our host noticed my distress.

"Go ahead and be sick if you need to," he said. "Try to do it outside the litter; but if you can't manage, don't worry. If you soil a few cushions, I'll simply throw them away."

I swallowed hard. "It will pass."

"Oh, don't hold it in!" he advised. "A man should never restrain his body's natural impulses. If nothing else, I've certainly learned that in the last few months."

Beside me, Davus recovered his wits. He stirred and sat upright. "Father-in-law, where are we?"

Our host answered. "You are in the most wicked city on earth, young man, and you've come at the most wicked time in her history. I should know; I was born here. And here I'll die. In between I've known wealth and poverty, joy and bitterness. Mostly poverty and mostly bitterness, to be honest. But now, in her final hour, my city forgives me and I forgive her. We exchange the only things we have to give, her final bounty for my final days."

"Are you a philosopher?" asked Davus, frowning.

The man laughed. It was like the sound of a scythe cutting thick grass. "My name is Hieronymus," he said, as if to change the subject. "And yours?"

"Gordianus," I said.

"Ah, a Roman, as the old men suspected."

"And this is Davus."

"A slave's name?"

"A freedman; my son-in-law. Where are you taking us?"

"To my tomb."

"Your tomb?" I asked, thinking I had misunderstood his Greek.

"Did I say that? I meant to say my home, of course. Now lie quietly and rest. You're safe with me."

From time to time I stole a glance between the curtains that sealed the box. At first we kept to a wide, main road. Not a shop was open and the street was empty, allowing the bearers to make good time. Then we turned off the main way into a maze of lesser roads, each more narrow than the last. We began to ascend, gradually at first, then more sharply. The bearers did a good job of keeping the box level, but nothing could disguise the sharp turns as they went around switchbacks, taking us higher and higher.

Finally the litter lurched to a halt. "Home!" declared Hieronymus. He folded his limbs and exited the box with the slow grace of an overfed stick insect. "Do you need assistance?" he called to me over his shoulder.

"No," I said, stepping out of the box onto wobbly legs. Davus stepped out after me and laid a hand on my shoulder to steady us both.

"However you came to be inside the city, it was clearly an ordeal for you both," said Hieronymus, looking us up and down.

"What would comfort you? Food? Wine? Ah, from the look on your faces, I see it's the latter. Come, we shall drink together. And none of the local swill. We'll drink what they drink in Rome. I think I still have some of the good Falernian left."

The house had been built along Roman lines, with a small foyer and an atrium that opened onto the rest of the dwelling. It was a rich man's house, with sumptuously painted walls and a fine mosaic of Neptune (or, since we were in a Greek city, Poseidon) in the atrium pool. Beyond a formal dining room, at the heart of the house, I glimpsed a garden surrounded by a peristyle of red and blue columns.

"Shall we take our wine in the garden?" said Hieronymus. "No, on the rooftop, I think. I love to show off the view."

We followed him up a flight of stairs to a rooftop terrace. Tall trees on either side of the house provided shade and seclusion, but the view toward the sea was clear. The house had been built on the crest of the ridge that ran through the city. Below us the ridge dropped off sharply, so that we looked down on rooftops that descended in steps toward the city walls. Beyond the walls, the sea extended to a horizon of scudding blue clouds. Off to the left, I could see a bit of the harbor and the rugged coastline beyond. Opposite the mouth of the harbor were the islands behind which Caesar's warships lay moored. Shielding my eyes against the lowering sun, I could see one of the ships peeking around the bend of the farthest island. The ship was tiny at such a distance, but the air was so clear I could make out long-shadowed sailors moving about the deck.

Hieronymus followed my gaze. "Yes, there it is, Caesar's navy. They think they're hiding around the bend, but we can see them, can't we? Peek-a-boo!" He fluttered his fingers in a simpering wave and laughed at his own absurdity, as if aware that such childishness was at odds with the lines of ancient suffering that creased his face.

"Were you hereabouts to witness the little naval battle we had a while back? No? It was something to see, I'll tell you. People lined the walls down there to watch, but I had the perfect vantage point right here. Catapults hurling missiles! Fire sweeping the decks! Blood on the water! Nine of our ships lost. Nine out of seventeen-a catastrophe! Some sunk, some captured by Caesar. What a humiliating day for Massilia that was. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it." He stared grimly at the now placid spot where the battle had taken place, then turned to me and brightened. "But I promised you wine! Here, sit. These chairs are made of imported terebinth. I'm told they shouldn't be left out of doors, but what do I care?"

We sat in the full sunshine. A slave brought wine. I praised the vintage, which was unmistakably Falernian. Hieronymus insisted I drink more. Against my better judgment I did. After his second cup, Davus fell asleep in his chair.

"The poor fellow must be exhausted," said Hieronymus. "We very nearly died today."

"A good thing you didn't, or else I'd be drinking alone."

I looked at him keenly, or as keenly as I could after a third cup of Falernian. So far he had asked not a single question about us-who we were, how we had entered the city, what we had come for. His lack of curiosity was puzzling. Perhaps, I thought, he was merely being patient, biding his time, allowing me to recover my wits.

"Why did you come to our rescue?" I asked.

"Mainly to spite those old men who hang about the market square, the ones who were kicking you and discussing you like a fish that needed gutting."

"Do you know them?"

He smiled ruefully. "Oh, yes, I've known them all my life. When I was a boy, they were men in their prime, very sure of themselves, full of their own importance. Now I'm a man and they're old, with nothing better to do than hang about the square all day, spreading slanders and commenting on everyone's business. The square is shut down now-there's nothing left to buy in the shops-but there they still go, day after day, haunting the place." He smiled. "I like to drop by in the litter every now and then just to taunt them."

"Taunt them?"

"They used to treat me rather badly, you see. The market square was where I used to spend my days, too… when I didn't have a roof over my head. That old coot Calamitos was the worst. He's gotten even crankier since the food shortages began. What a joy to see him so flustered he broke his cane! When I think of the times he struck me with it…

"I don't understand. Who are you? I heard them call you `Scapegoat.' And the old man said he'd report you to the Timouchoi. Who are they?"

He stared grimly at the sea for a long moment, then clapped his hands. "Slave! If I'm to tell the story, and if my new friend Gordianus is to hear it, we shall both require more wine."