Wrath of the Furies

XXVI

The chamberlain met me as soon as I arrived at the palace. He took me to the dining hall, where I was given a meal of bread and dates, which I consumed like a starving man. Then he escorted me back to my quarters. I was surprised, and happily so, to see no one in the room but Bethesda.

As soon as the chamberlain closed the door, I took her in my arms.

“But where are the other two?” I whispered in her ear.

“Gnossipus and Damianus were given their own room,” she said.

“Do you mean we’re alone?”

“Yes.”

What followed involved no words. My longing for her was as sharp as a nettle, as sweet as honey. The room seemed too small to contain it. There was no piece of furniture or bit of floor or wall against which we did not make love in one position or another. How long this went on, I couldn’t say, as time seemed to have fled from that room.

There was a bowl of fruit and a pitcher of water on a small table, and from time to time we paused to eat and drink. Even during these moments of rest, we said little, and I never spoke above a whisper, fearful of being overheard by some listener at the door. We seemed to be alone, but occasionally I wondered if someone might be spying on us through a hidden peephole. What a show we gave them, if that were so! But there was never any indication, afterward, that anyone saw or heard anything that transpired in that room. I think we truly were alone all through that languid morning and lazy afternoon.

From time to time, in the heat of passion, I imagined it was Amestris with whom I was making love; the music of her voice and the beauty of her face were vivid in my memory. But thoughts of Amestris led to thoughts of doomed Freny, and to memories of my dream of Artemis the night before, and I would shake myself and open my eyes and gaze at the woman I was with-no phantom or goddess or memory, but Bethesda, who to my eyes was more beautiful than any other. What a lucky man I was to hold in my arms the treasure I valued above all others!

As the day waned and the dinner hour approached, I told Bethesda, in bits and pieces, and always in a whisper, what had happened to me after she and the others departed from the temple grounds and I was left in the care of Zeuxidemus. When I mentioned the appearance of Samson, her eyes widened ever so slightly. If I sometimes imagined Amestris when I was with Bethesda, did she sometimes imagine Samson, or some other man? As soon as that thought occurred to me, I strove to banish it. Such thoughts never lead to anything good.

When I told her about our visit to the house of Eutropius, I left out Amestris entirely. The doom laid on the young virgin slave of Anthea’s-so I described Freny-was poignant enough without including the anguish of her older sister.

“Why always a slave?” was Bethesda’s comment. “If her mistress also is still a virgin, would she not be more suitable? Surely the life of the daughter of a powerful citizen is of more value than the life of a mere slave, and so would be more pleasing to those who receive the sacrifice?” I noticed that she avoided mentioning the Furies by name.

“I don’t think that’s the way it works,” I whispered. “If you could have seen the queen’s face…”

“Describe to me again what she was wearing.”

Thus did Bethesda lead me into digressions of more interest to her than to me, interrupting the thought I was about to express: that Monime somehow (through spies?) must have learned of the king’s attraction to Freny, and had used her influence to convince the Great Megabyzus and the Grand Magus to choose Freny for the sacrifice. Thus the queen would get rid of the poor girl, presumably with the king himself being forced to watch while the object of his desire was slaughtered. What sort of mortals were this king and queen, to play such games with the lives of others?

Instead of sorting out these tangled thoughts, I was doing my best to recall the details of the queen’s clothing when Bethesda interrupted me. “The fortune-teller back in Alexandria!” she said. “She spoke of a virgin, did she not? A beautiful young virgin, in danger. That must be Freny. The fortune-teller also mentioned a sacrifice-yes, I’m sure of it. She even spoke of the wrath of…”

“The Furies,” I dared to whisper, at which Bethesda made some sort of sign, as if to protect herself from the Evil Eye. What did I recall of the fortune-teller’s rant? I had not taken her seriously at the time. Her advice had been to stay away from Ephesus, and I had ignored that advice. What else had she said? Suddenly I heard her voice in my head, almost as if she were in the room with us:

“Blood! Fountains of blood, lakes of blood, a sea of blood! The streets will be filled with rejoicing. The temples will be filled with corpses!”

There was a rapping at the door. I gave a start, but it was only a slave who called through the door that the dinner hour had come.

[From the secret diary of Antipater of Sidon:]

I find myself back at the palace.

Early this morning a royal chamberlain appeared on the doorstep of my ostensible hiding place-obviously not a hiding place at all!-and politely asked to see Zoticus of Zeugma. I must have been followed when I came to this house yesterday, thinking to escape the scrutiny of the king and queen. Or can there be spies even in this humble abode?

When I came to the vestibule of the house, the man told me to gather up all my things, as my presence was requested at the royal palace, where a room would be provided for me. A couple of slaves appeared, to carry my things. Outside in the street, I could see armed courtiers. Was I being invited to the palace, or arrested? Or is there a difference, when the summons is issued by an all-powerful monarch?

“Was it the king who sent you?” I asked the chamberlain. “Or was it the queen?”

“My orders never come directly from either of Their Majesties,” he said, and rather condescendingly, as if I were a simpleton. “Be assured I speak with the authority of the royal household.”

“So I have no choice but to obey?”

“None at all,” he said.

And so I was escorted back into the lion’s den, so to speak. The quarters I was given are in the lower story of the house, with the acrobats and other riffraff. Among the scant possessions that the slaves dutifully delivered to my room were my writing instruments and the unbound pages of the journal I have been writing, which are tightly rolled up and kept inside a small leather cylinder, a scroll satchel of the sort Roman schoolboys carry and call, in Latin, a capsa. How could I ever have thought those words were secret? Undoubtedly the servants assigned to me in the house of Eutropius were spies, and have read every word I’ve written.

These words, too, will almost certainly be read by some spy from the royal household. I can assume that nothing I do is in secret.

It occurs to me that perhaps I should burn these pages, rather than add more words to them. And yet, the only comfort I find in my predicament is to continue recording my thoughts-but for whom? Who is the imaginary reader for whom these words are intended?

Gordianus. Who else?

But he is far from here, in Alexandria, or perhaps back in Rome. By what possible means could these words ever reach him? It is futile to think that we shall ever be reconciled, or that I could ever make him understand the choices I made. What a fool I have become in my dotage! Truly, Antipater of Sidon has turned into Zoticus, the simpleton poet of Zeugma!

But there is the knock at my door, letting me know that I may now have the pleasure of dining in the company of tumblers and contortionists. Even the doomed must continue to eat …

[Here ends this fragment from the secret diary of Antipater of Sidon.]

As before, I was allowed to bring Bethesda with me into the dining hall. I had put aside the yellow tunic and put on one of my own.

We arrived just in time to behold the spectacle of Sosipater juggling whatever anyone cared to toss his way. Among those watching him, I saw Gnossipus and Damianus.

Sosipater already had several plums in the air, then someone tossed a fig at him, which he deftly caught and added to the circle of flying objects. More items were tossed to him-a small clay cup, a copper bowl, even a shoe. Each in turn joined the other airborne objects, which seemed to fly of their own accord, swooping up and down, and only by coincidence bouncing off the palms of Sosipater’s hands. I had seen street entertainers who called themselves jugglers in Alexandria, but I had never seen anything like this.

Sosipater kept this up for quite some time, making various facial expressions to evoke laughter from the crowd, and even closing his eyes for a while, as if he had nodded off. Then he appeared to grow careless, and with a desperate look on his face he bolted this way and that, seemingly on the verge of dropping everything. But this was only a part of the act, which evoked exclamations of alarm followed by raucous laughter.

He ended the performance by letting the copper bowl land upright in one hand, into which the pieces of fruit fell one by one. The shoe fell into his other hand. As for the clay cup, it landed on top of his head and stayed there, perfectly balanced. I could hardly believe my eyes.

“But what sort of fool walks around with a cup on his head?” said Sosipater. “A cup is not a cap! Here, who needs a cup? How about you, old fellow?”

With his chin, Sosipater pointed toward a man who had just stepped into the room. I was so intent on watching the juggler that I saw the newcomer only from the corner of my eye. I could tell that he had a white beard, but little else.

Somehow, with a toss of his head, Sosipater managed to throw the cup toward the newcomer. The old man was caught by surprise and fumbled the catch. The cup bounced from hand to hand as if it were a hot coal, then fell to the floor, where it broke into pieces.

“You clumsy fellow!” said Sosipater, who now stood with his elbows out and his fists on his hips. Somehow he had made the copper bowl of fruit and the shoe disappear while no one was watching.

Standing next to me, Bethesda joined in the laughter and applause, but I stood like a statue, dumbstruck. The old man who had dropped the cup was Antipater.

Embarrassed and red-faced, he kept his eyes lowered, and didn’t see me staring at him from across the room. A moment later, with an exclamation of disgust, he turned around and left the room. When I moved to follow him, a strong hand gripped my shoulder.

“Stay where you are, Agathon,” whispered the voice of Samson in my right ear. “Don’t go after him.”

Why not? I wanted to ask. For what other purpose am I here, but to find Antipater? Now, at last, I have!

But I didn’t dare to speak, even in a whisper, and as I stared at the empty doorway through which Antipater had made his flustered exit, where a slave was kneeling down to pick up the broken pieces of the cup, my sighting of him began to seem unreal, almost as if I had imagined it. I had glimpsed the old man’s face for only an instant. Had I seen what I wanted to see? Even as I began to doubt my eyes, Samson spoke again in my ear.

“Yes, that was Zoticus you saw. But this is not the moment. Later.”

I turned and looked him in the eye.

“Later,” Samson repeated. “Tonight, I’ll come to you.” Then he turned his back on me and moved away, joining the crowd that was still laughing and talking about Sosipater’s performance.

“What did he want, I wonder?” said Bethesda, who stood to the other side of me and had been unable to overhear Samson’s words. Nor could she have recognized Antipater, since she had never seen him. The strained look on my face puzzled her. Her eyes followed Samson’s broad back as he moved away from us.

“I’m not sure I trust that fellow,” she said.

Nor am I, I thought. But what choice did I have?