Wrath of the Furies

XI

“His vicious little queen,” Antipater had written about this woman called Monime. What threat did she pose to Antipater, and how great was the danger? For what possible reason had I been summoned to her royal presence? Was such an unexpected privilege the best thing that could happen-or the worst?

Gaius Cassius had been able to give me only a few pieces of information about Monime. Her father was one Philopoemen, a man of Macedonian blood and a person of considerable importance in the city of Stratonicea. When Mithridates laid claim to Stratonicea, he met with the city’s most powerful families, and the alluring Monime caught his eye.

It had not, at first, been the king’s intention to marry the young woman. Mithridates had been married only once before, to his own sister, Laodice, whom he had executed for sleeping with his friends and plotting against him. Having been given several male heirs already by the late Laodice, and having access to any number of beautiful courtesans for his pleasure, Mithridates had vowed never to marry again. Probably he thought Monime would be flattered to become yet another of his courtesans, but the young woman resisted his advances, and her father stepped in to negotiate. In such cases, money usually sufficed. Flush from his victories and his acquisition of the treasuries on Cos, Mithridates offered an astounding sum-fifteen thousand gold pieces-that Monime refused. She insisted on a marriage contract, a royal diadem, and the title of queen.

Monime had nerve-a quality Mithridates apparently found as appealing as her beauty. Instead of incurring his wrath, her audacity only whetted his appetite for the nuptial bed. Monime’s resolve was rewarded with a royal marriage. For his reward, the king’s new father-in-law was appointed royal overseer of Ephesus.

These bits of information gave me some idea of the sort of woman I was soon to meet, but no clue as to why she wanted to meet me.

Clucking his tongue and shooing various lesser functionaries out of his way, the eunuch escorted us to a shaded portico just inside the city gate. A great many litters, large and small, were stationed on blocks; the bearers to carry them stood idly by, awaiting orders. The eunuch practically shoved me into one of the two-person litters, then got into it himself, taking the seat across from me. It was a covered litter, with curtains that could either be tucked behind hooks or closed for privacy.

The eunuch unhooked the curtains and let them fall shut, then thrust one arm outside the box and snapped his fingers. I heard the shuffling sounds of a team of bearers taking their stations at the poles on either side of the box.

“The royal palace!” he said.

I grabbed my seat as the bearers lifted us off the blocks.

What of Bethesda? Apparently the eunuch expected her to walk. I did not like the idea. Nor did she. She parted the curtains and peered inside.

“Am I not to ride, as well?” she asked.

“You? A slave?” said the eunuch.

“But I am my master’s tongue-the only voice he possesses. Do you not intend to converse with him during the trip?”

The eunuch considered this for a moment, then dismissed her with a wave. “We shall ride in silence,” he said. “Follow along behind us, girl. You look fit enough to keep up.”

Bethesda pursed her lips, then vanished from sight as the curtain of the litter fell shut and we headed off.

Where exactly was I being taken? That was another question I might have asked the eunuch, had I a voice.

The last time I had been in Ephesus, there had been no such thing as a royal palace, because there had been no royalty. Like many a Greek-speaking city, Ephesus had become a Roman protectorate, having been bequeathed to the Senate and People of Rome in the will of its last ruler, the heirless King Attalus III of Pergamon. As governor of Asia, Gaius Cassius had been in charge of Ephesus, ruling from Pergamon. More locally, the city had been governed by a council of city fathers. Antipater had undoubtedly explained the governing structure of Ephesus to me, but I had not paid much attention to the details-I had been too busy saving Anthea, and receiving my reward from Amestris. But I was certain there had been no king or queen running the place. That had changed with the city’s “liberation” by Mithridates. He was now the king, Monime was the queen, and Philopoemen was the episcopus, or royal overseer.

What, then, was this so-called “royal palace” to which I was being taken? As I would later learn, Attalus III had kept a residence in the city-not surprisingly, the grandest dwelling in Ephesus. Subsequently, this dwelling had become the property of the richest Roman banker in the city, who filled it with artworks and furnishings fit for a king-quite literally, as it turned out, for when the Roman banker fled for his life to Rhodes, Mithridates claimed the abandoned property for his royal residence.

As our journey progressed, I quickly grew bored of looking at the eunuch across from me, and parted the curtains of the litter so I could look outside. One waterside market looks much like any other, I thought, until my attention was drawn to a placard posted in a conspicuous spot. It was daubed with red paint that read, in both Latin and Greek:

BY DECREE OF HIS MAJESTY

KING MITHRIDATES, KING OF KINGS,

AND UPON PAIN OF IMMEDIATE DEATH,

ALL ROMANS MUST WEAR THE TOGA

AT ALL TIMES.

Pythion had told me about this proclamation. But to hear of such a decree is one thing; to see it with my own eyes was another. And I saw it not once, but many times, repeated on placards posted in every available spot, not just in the markets but in the residential streets beyond. Appended to many of these placards was a second decree, apparently added later since the paint was another shade of red and the smaller letters were cramped to fit the remaining space:

IT IS FURTHER DECREED,

ALSO UPON PAIN OF IMMEDIATE DEATH,

THAT ALL ROMANS MUST SURRENDER ALL ARMS,

LARGE AND SMALL, TO THE CIVIL AUTHORITIES.

What made the first decree so sinister? Why did it raise hackles on the back of my neck? It was something about the words “immediate death”-not just death, but immediate death, inflicted on the spot-and the coupling of such a frightful punishment with the toga. The donning of his first toga marks every Roman boy’s induction into manhood. To wear the toga in Rome is to feel one is a Roman among many Romans, not only the living but the ancestors as well, all sharing centuries of tradition. To wear the toga in foreign lands is to show one’s pride at being Roman among those who are not. But there could be no pride in wearing a garment because a king demanded it, knowing that failure to do so would bring immediate death. A mark of pride had been made into something shameful.

Why were the decrees in both Latin and Greek? To a Roman the message would mean one thing. To a Greek it would mean something quite different-that the outsiders had been forced to wear an identifying garment, making them easy to spot at a distance. Easy to shun, or to follow, or to track. Easy to round up, as Pythion had said.

Now these outcasts had been stripped of their weapons, as well.

The placards grew less frequent as the bearers began to ascend one winding street after another, taking us into the district of fine mansions in the vicinity of the theater. This was the neighborhood where Antipater’s friend and former pupil Eutropius lived. Studying the passing scene, I recognized certain landmarks, and drew in a sharp breath as we passed directly in front of Eutropius’s house.

Antipater had written that he was being allowed to reside away from the royal court, in the house of Eutropius. Was he inside the house at that very moment, perhaps sitting down to dinner with his host and his host’s daughter? And was the lovely Anthea being waited upon by her equally lovely slave Amestris, she whose hair was the color of midnight?

Even as my thoughts took a certain turn, I again saw before me, peering into the litter, the face of … not Amestris, but Bethesda!

She gave me a blank stare, and then I quickly averted my face, feeling my cheeks grow hot. Simply by looking at me, Bethesda was often able to read my thoughts. This ability had proven useful to a master feigning muteness, but it could also be disconcerting. How did she do it? I suspected sorcery. It seemed to me that her ability had grown stronger since the time she spent as a captive in the Nile Delta, under the protection and possible tutelage of the Corinthian witch, Ismene.

The eunuch shooed Bethesda away, and the litter sped past the house of Eutropius and ascended even higher up the hill, beyond the theater, passing mansions even grander than that of Eutropius. At last we could go no higher, for the street ended.

The eunuch indicated that I should step out of the litter first. I looked for Bethesda and beckoned for her to join me. The eunuch ushered the two of us up the steps that led to the entrance. The massive bronze doors stood wide open, flanked by two of the brawniest guards I had ever seen. By their raven hair, dark skin, and exotic armor I took them to be Persians.

The house before me was one of the grandest I had ever seen, ornamented with fluted marble columns and rimmed with many terraces and balconies. At the top of the steps, I turned and swept my gaze across the city below. To the west, silhouetted by the sinking sun, I saw the wooded bluffs beyond the harbor. Below us were countless rooftops clustered around the concave mass of the theater. To the northeast, dominating the plain beyond the city, stood the Temple of Artemis.

This was my first sight of the temple since I had arrived, and the first time I had seen it from such a lofty vantage point. I drew a sharp breath, amazed that the temple appeared even larger than I remembered, and more beautiful. The temple did not stand in complete isolation, for a number of lesser buildings consecrated for sacred uses were scattered on the surrounding grounds. But these more modest structures only served to highlight the magnificence of the temple. Clad in marble and gold and brightly colored paint, it glittered like some monstrous jewel box-which in a way it was, for the temple was even more spectacular inside than out, a repository of fabulous treasures of every sort, from rubies and emeralds to antique weapons to the famous painting of Alexander the Great that seemed to lunge forward from the wall.

The temple had been the first World Wonder I visited, and none that I saw afterward, not even the Great Pyramid, had impressed me more. Antipater had spoken truly when he wrote his famous poem about it. I silently mouthed the words:

I have seen the walls of Babylon, so lofty and so wide,

And the Gardens of that city, which flower in the skies.

I have seen the ivory Zeus, great Olympia’s pride,

And the towering Mausoleum where Artemisia’s husband lies.

I have seen the huge Colossus, which lifts its head to heaven,

And taller still, the Pyramids, whose secrets none can tell.

But the house of Artemis at Ephesus, of all the Wonders Seven,

Must surely be the grandest, where a god may rightly dwell.

If Artemis truly dwelled in the temple, she was not alone. I had been told that a great many Romans were seeking sanctuary there, and indeed, I saw many people moving in and out of the temple and milling about, some sitting on the temple steps while others loitered around the great altar. A few of these people were the priests of Artemis, called Megabyzoi, recognizable even at such a great distance by their bright yellow robes and tall yellow headdresses. But many more were obviously Romans, equally recognizable by the white togas they wore. The women I took to be Roman wives and daughters. Others in the crowd were probably household servants and slaves who had accompanied their masters in search of a safe haven.

While I stood staring at the view, the eunuch obtained permission for us to enter. He ushered us onward, through the massive entry and into a large courtyard. Here he stopped to confer with another official, this one even more ostentatiously dressed. The gewgaws dangling from this man’s turban appeared to be made of silver and precious stones, rather than base metal and glass, as no doubt suited a chamberlain of the royal household.

“But you will make sure I get the credit for finding this one?” insisted the eunuch. The royal chamberlain gave him a curt, dismissive nod, then, with a simple movement of one eyebrow, indicated that I should follow him.

We left the courtyard and entered one wing of the house. Every space was filled with sumptuous decoration, from the frescoes on the walls and ceilings to the geometric mosaics underfoot. Beside me, I saw Bethesda staring at our surroundings in wonder.

We walked down a long hallway, passing busy slaves and bustling military officers. At last we arrived in a small but dazzling vestibule where every architectural detail and ornament appeared to be covered with gold foil. Mosaic peacocks spread their wings on the floor beneath us. Painted storks and egrets wheeled across the ceiling above us. I could only wonder what sort of fabulous room lay beyond.

The chamberlain at last spoke. “I understand that you are mute.”

I nodded.

“But you can hear, and have all your other senses?”

I nodded.

“Good. And this is your slave, who speaks for you?”

Bethesda opened her mouth to speak, but the man silenced her with a raised finger. He hummed and clicked his teeth.

“Ah, not the most ideal situation. Court protocol dictates that a slave may speak directly to Her Majesty only in certain rare circumstances. But … I suppose this might be one such circumstance. And yet.…” He appeared to weigh his options for a long moment, then nodded. “Yes, I have it! What is your name, slave?”

“Bethesda,” she said.

The man made a face. “What sort of name is that?” He grunted, but did not wait for an answer. “Well, then … slave,” he said, unable or unwilling to pronounce her exotic name, “when a question is asked by Her Majesty of your master, which you are capable of answering, you will whisper the answer to me, and I will convey the answer to Her Majesty. Do you understand, slave?”

Bethesda drew a deep breath. She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, I understand.”

“Very good. Well, then, follow me.” The man signaled to a servant who stood beside the door, who obediently opened it for us.