The Seven Wonders

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For many days, the fiery deaths at the Pharos were the talk of Alexandria. Various stories were put forth to account for the terrible events, but the one that came to hold sway was this: one of the workers, in a fit of insanity, attacked the master of the lighthouse and cast him into the flames, and this same worker then attacked a visitor whom Anubion had been escorting on a tour, an unfortunate scholar from the Library who had expressed an interest in the history of the Pharos. The killings were put down to the act of a madman; politics and intrigue played no part. A certain Zoticus of Zeugma was occasionally mentioned, but only as a witness. No one seemed to know anything about him-which was hardly surprising, I thought, since no such person existed.

* * *

At the age of seventeen, the world had declared me to be a man, old enough to wear a toga. But it was in Alexandria that I truly left my boyhood behind. The transformation happened not in an instant, but over a period of time. It began the moment I realized that Antipater had deceived me.

Before, despite all my travels and riddle solving and amorous adventures, I was still a boy, trusting the world around me-or more precisely, trusting that the world, enormous though it might be, was nonetheless a comprehensible place, susceptible to reason, as were the people in it. People, especially strangers, could be mysterious, but that was not a bad thing; it was a cause for excitement, for mysteries existed to be solved, and solving them gave pleasure. Every mystery had a solution; and by their very proximity, the people closest to us were the least mysterious. Or so I had believed.

“The world is not as simple as you think,” Antipater had said to me. It would never be simple again.

My first days and months alone in Alexandria were often languorous, but never boring. I had just enough money to get by, which is all a young man needs. Also, as Antipater had predicted, I began to find work, following in my father’s footsteps. The Finder, he called himself-though as often as not, I found myself playing ferret or weasel, digging through other people’s garbage. To a young Roman in a vibrant, foreign city, the mysteries I was hired to solve all seemed exotic and alluring-the more sordid and bizarre, the better.

I continued to struggle to come to terms with Antipater’s deceit. Thanks to our travels together, I had seen with my own eyes the glories of Greek civilization. Antipater loved that world and desperately wanted to preserve it, at any price. He was a poet who decided to become a man of action, dedicating his final years to the cause of saving the Greek-speaking world from the domination of Rome, which could only be accomplished by Mithridates. Toward that end, Antipater had been willing to sacrifice everything else-including my trust in him. My feelings about this changed from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour.

One evening, as the stars began to come out, I was sitting on the steps of the Temple of Serapis, gazing over the city toward the distant Pharos, when a doubt suddenly occurred to me. It must have been worming its way through my consciousness for months, planted there by Nikanor. He had been certain that Antipater was a traitor to their cause-and had said as much to Anubion before he killed him, railing against “the old Sidonian.” Of course, Nikanor had been mad. But madmen are not always mistaken.

What if Nikanor had been right about Antipater?

Was it possible that Antipater was a double agent? Could it be that he only pretended to side with Mithridates, while in fact he was loyal to Rome? If such was the case, might it be that my father knew of the deception and actively took part in it? Indeed, could it be that my father was the author of the scheme? What did I really know about my father’s activities and affiliations?

If my father was in fact working for the Roman Senate, and Antipater was a double agent, then the two of them had doubly deceived me-all for my own good, of course. I found this convoluted notion at once disquieting and strangely comforting.

Stop, Gordianus! You’re beginning to sound as mad as Nikanor, I told myself. But the worm of doubt would not be put to rest.

How was I ever to know the truth? I prayed that the gods would keep my father safe from all harm, and that I would see him again in Rome. I prayed for them to protect Antipater as well, so that I might speak to him at least once more. But the world is a dangerous place, and prayers are not always answered. What if I was never to know the truth?

Sitting on the temple steps, I stared at the unwavering light of the Pharos-a point of certainty in an uncertain world. I wished for an end to all my doubts, knowing it was not to be. This was manhood, from which there could be no turning back: to know that some mysteries might never be solved, some questions never answered. But a man must persevere nonetheless.

* * *

“Why seven?” I had asked Antipater. At the time, it had not occurred to me to ask, “Why make a list at all?”

Now I knew. A list delineates that which is from that which is not. A list can be memorized and mastered. A list gives order to a chaotic universe.

With such thoughts in my head, I took to spending much of my free time on the steps of the Library, listening to teachers and philosophers who freely shared their wisdom with anyone who cared to listen or dared to argue. All schools of thought were represented. I listened to Stoics, Skeptics, Cynics, Epicureans, and Neo-Platonists, along with stargazing Babylonian astrologers and tale-spinning Jewish sages.

At night, I sought pleasures of the flesh. In Alexandria, these were not hard to come by.

It occurred to me that the true wonders a man encounters in the journey of his life are not the mute monuments of stone, but his fellow mortals. Some lead us to wisdom. Some delight us with pleasure. Some make us laugh. Some fill us with terror, or pity, or loathing. You need not travel the world to find these wonders. They are everywhere around you, every day.

But a man who has traveled to the Seven Wonders of the World need never lack for attention. Men and women alike loved to hear the stories I could tell. In the taverns of Rhakotis, my cup was always full. On warm, starlit nights, my bed was seldom empty.

Such was the life into which I settled in Alexandria: hardworking, intellectually stimulating, and dissolute all at once. By the Roman calendar the month of Martius arrived, and with it the birthday of Antipater. Was he blind drunk, suffering his annual “birthday fever,” wherever he might be? This was followed by the second anniversary of his false death. Then came my birthday. I was twenty.

I began to feel-dare I say it?-slightly jaded. Perhaps I had traveled too far, seen too much. Pleasures that had amused me began to bore me. Food lost its flavor, inebriation was tedious, and even ecstasies of the flesh seemed repetitious. The philosophers and sages all began to sound alike. Alexandria itself-the most cosmopolitan of cities, center of culture, beacon to mankind-began to seem mundane and ordinary, just another place.

And then …

I was near the waterfront one day, passing a market where slaves were sold. It was not one of the better such markets in the city; the goods were usually damaged or in some way second-rate. Some of the slaves were offered so cheaply that even I might have afforded one-had I needed a servant and wished to pay for the upkeep. A cat would have suited me better than a slave, but either would need to be fed.

The item on offer was a toothless old vagrant who had agreed to give up his freedom if anyone would care to purchase him. The crowd hooted and made catcalls. There were no takers. The auctioneer voided the offer, and the disconsolate would-be slave shambled off. The next offering was brought onto the block.

“Not this one again!” cried someone.

“She’s back,” said another. “Didn’t someone buy her just a few days ago?”

“Bought her, took her home-and returned her the next day!” came the answer. “She’s a troublemaker, that one. Buyer beware-unless you don’t mind having a finger bit off!”

“Looks harmless enough. Not that big-”

“It’s the small, wiry ones you have to look out for.”

“Nice figure. Could be quite pretty, if someone were to bathe and take a brush to her.”

“Pretty counts for nothing, if she’s too wild to be tamed.”

The auctioneer called for silence. He looked unhappy, like a man with a toothache. “I have for sale one female slave, exact age unknown, though you can see for yourself that she’s quite young. I won’t pretend that she’s fresh-many of you have seen her before. A few of you have even owned her already-and brought her back to be sold again. Her current owner is aware of the problematic nature of this item, and so he is willing to start the bidding at a very low amount.” He named a ridiculously low sum, the cost of a few days’ worth of bread.

For the first time, I took a good look at the girl on the block. She had kept her head lowered until that moment. Now she looked up, pushed the masses of black hair from her face, and stared defiantly at the crowd. She stood with one foot in front of the other and held her shoulders back. Her posture and demeanor were not that of a slave. Her dark, glimmering eyes met mine.

My heart quickened. Something stirred in me that I had never felt before.

I looked into the little money bag I carried. As low as was the figure the auctioneer had named, I did not have enough.

The auctioneer called out the figure again. The crowd shuffled restlessly. No one bid.

“Very well,” sighed the auctioneer. “I am authorized to lower the starting bid.” He named a figure that was half of what he had named before.

It was exactly the amount I had in my purse. I studied the coins to be sure, then swallowed hard and looked at the girl again. She stared back at me. On her face I seemed to read amusement and disdain. But that was only on the surface, the face she showed to everyone. There was something else in her eyes, something only I could see-an expression at once proud and pleading, demure and demanding.

Never having bid on a slave before, I slowly raised my hand.

“We have a buyer!” cried the auctioneer, looking relieved and slightly astonished. Others in the crowd raised their eyebrows and shook their heads. Some laughed out loud.

Eager to finalize the transaction at once, the auctioneer summoned me onto the block and reached for my purse. As he counted the coins, I asked him what the girl was called.

“A name as peculiar and barbaric as she is. Hebrew, I think: Bethesda.”

Looking at her, I spoke the curious word for the first time. “Bethesda,” I whispered. “Now I know the name of the Eighth Wonder of the World.”

The auctioneer looked at me as if I were crazy. So did Bethesda.

So began the next chapter of my life.