Wrath of the Furies

XXXI

I spent much of that day sleeping. I badly needed the rest, having had so little the night before.

Late in the afternoon, the chamberlain came for me. “Wear whatever you like,” he said. “You’ll be properly dressed for the ritual after the bath.”

“Bath?” asked Bethesda, reading the quizzical look on my face.

“Of course you must be cleansed before the ritual. There are boys who will bathe you. Unless your slave usually bathes you? In that case, you may bring her along. But she can’t wear that yellow tunic. It wouldn’t be proper.”

The two of us dressed in the clothes in which we had arrived, then followed the chamberlain to a small, beautifully tiled room, all in shades of dark green and blue. If I had been expecting a proper Roman-style bath-something I had not had in days, and had begun to crave-I was to be disappointed. Here there were no pools in which a man could submerge himself, but instead only a simple drain in the floor, tiled benches along the walls, strigils of various shapes, flasks of aromatic oils, several pitchers of water of various temperatures, and cloths for drying myself. After we were left alone, I stripped, allowed Bethesda to apply the oils to every part of me, then stood while she scraped the oil off using whichever strigil had a blade best shaped for that part of my body.

Since we had been left alone, and there was plenty of oil and water, I did the same for Bethesda. I realized I had never bathed her in such a way, paying such close attention to every part of her. The act was erotic, to be sure, but also strangely calming, and somehow somber, since this might be the act that marked our final moments together. If so, the Fates were kind to allow this last act to be so intimate, and of mutual service to each other. I dared not speak, lest someone overhear, but no words were needed. I had never felt closer to her.

Once cleansed, we rinsed each other first with warm water, then with cold. Enough of the oil clung to the skin to leave us supple and gleaming and lightly perfumed. As I gazed at Bethesda, who stood before me wearing nothing, I wondered how I could ever have confused her in my dreams with Amestris, or with any other woman, since Bethesda was the most beautiful of all. I should have liked to simply stand there, staring at her, but she quickly dressed, not wanting the chamberlain to come upon her while she was naked.

When the chamberlain returned, he brought me a dark tunic that reached below my knees and covered most of my arms. He insisted on dressing me himself. I think this was so that he could check to see that I had been sufficiently cleaned. “Your slave did an excellent job. She seems to have bathed herself as well,” he noted, not realizing that it was I who bathed her. “She’ll be taken back to your room now, and you will follow me.”

Another chamberlain was waiting at the door. He nodded to Bethesda, then led her away. She gave me a last glance over her shoulder. How I longed to speak her name!

The chamberlain led me in another direction. It was the hour of dusk, when preparations are made to light the lamps. Servants were kindling fires, carrying torches, and pouring oil into vessels. The hours of daylight were done. The hours of darkness had begun.

I was led to a large courtyard where several litters were waiting, all shrouded with black curtains. The chamberlain indicated that I should step into one of these, and I found myself once more in the company of Gnossipus and Damianus. Like me, they wore dark tunics. They sat side by side, while I sat across from them.

The deaf man gave me a grunt of welcome. Gnossipus raised an eyebrow. “Is that you, Agathon?”

The interior was so plush with pillows and cushions that I had to search to find a hard wooden surface on which to rap my knuckles. I did so twice.

“Ah, so it is you, Agathon. Often I can recognize people by their smell, but we’ve all been scrubbed clean and perfumed with the same scented oil, so we all smell alike. Here we are, the three of us, off to do whatever it is the king requires. I find it rather exciting, don’t you?”

I rapped my knuckles twice. More exciting than you know, I thought. As the litter was lifted from the blocks, my heart began to race.

All night Antipater and I had practiced what we planned to do. But would I have the nerve? Would Antipater? We were to act on a signal from Kysanias. Would the priest carry through with our plans, or would his courage fail him?

The curtains remained closed as we set off. I could see nothing outside the litter. As the last light of day receded, the interior of the litter became so dark that I was almost as blind as Gnossipus.

“I wonder where we’re headed?” he said. “I mean to say, I know we’re off to the Grove of the … Kindly Ones … but I don’t where that is. Do you?”

I knocked once. With so much else to discuss and rehearse the night before, I hadn’t thought to ask Kysanias the location of the grove. With the curtains closed and darkness all around, I had no idea in what direction we were headed. At some point, from the sounds outside, I was certain we passed through a city gate, but Ephesus had several gates, all leading in different directions.

Gnossipus began to hum tunelessly. “They wouldn’t let me bring my flute,” he said morosely.

Damianus began to shift nervously in his seat. Unable to hear and with only darkness around him, it was no wonder he began to feel unsettled. I realized that I was shifting about uneasily, too, and grinding my teeth.

The journey seemed to last a long time.

At last we came to a halt. I felt the litter settle onto blocks. The curtains were drawn back. A figure holding aloft a torch silently beckoned for us to step out. The light of the flames revealed the face of Zeuxidemus, though he was dressed not in yellow but in a dark tunic not unlike the one I was wearing. So were all the men around him. Among them I recognized some of the Megabyzoi and Magi who had examined me naked, including the Grand Magus and Kysanias. Their clothing was so dark that it was hard to tell one from another, but that was intentional. A man does not approach the Furies dressed in such a way as to call attention to himself.

Leaving the litter-bearers behind, and led by a few among us bearing torches, we walked a short distance, stopping at a low wall made of rough-hewn stones. There was a break in this wall, beyond which a gravel path led to a circle of towering cypress trees. In the darkness, it was hard to judge the diameter of this circle. The tall, slender trees stood so close together that they formed a sort of wall. Whatever might be inside that circle of trees could not be seen.

The night was very still. There was no sound except that of footsteps and the crackling of torches. A company of spear-bearers approached; these were the king’s private bodyguards, clad in armor and helmets that gleamed in the torchlight. They escorted a small group dressed in the same dark tunics as the Magi and Megabyzoi. Among the approaching faces illuminated by the flickering light I saw those of Antipater and Rutilius.

At the head of this company was a man who would have stood out even if he had not been wearing a fillet of purple and white on his head. Mithridates stood taller than even the tallest of his bodyguards, and his black tunic did not conceal the breadth of his shoulders and the brawniness of his arms and legs. Though the night was warm, he wore a cloak as well, just as Kysanias had predicted, saying the king always wore it for important occasions-the purple cloak of Alexander the Great, taken from the Egyptian treasury at Cos. The gold embroidery on the cloak caught the light, further setting him apart from the rest of us.

The king’s face was clean-shaven, showing his powerful jaw. Torchlight picked out strands of silver amid the long hair combed back from his face. His strong features were those of a man who looks his best in middle age. His mouth was grim but his eyes glittered with confidence.

The only other monarch I had ever seen so close at hand was the recently deposed King Ptolemy, back in Egypt. Two men could not have been more dissimilar. If King Ptolemy was the fattest man I’d ever seen, Mithridates was one of the fittest, and certainly the most formidable. Seeing him in the flesh, I despaired for his enemies, including Rome.

I despaired for myself, as well, for this was the man we were conspiring to deceive. Even at a glance, I saw that Mithridates was no man’s fool. What had we been thinking? I remembered the scoffing noises Bethesda had made as I described our scheme. I felt light-headed. A trickle of sweat snaked its way down my spine.

Next to the king, so much smaller that she seemed almost a child, was the queen. Monime was swathed in black silk. Her body merged into the darkness, so that her red-gold hair and pale round face seemed almost to levitate, as if attached to nothing beneath.

I glanced at the others in the king’s company. Besides Antipater and Rutilius, I recognized the young Prince Ptolemy, who stood near Monime. The golden cobra of his uraeus crown, with its ruby eyes, glittered in the light. Why was he being included in the ritual? Did the king think of the kidnapped prince as part of his household? Or, since he wore a crown, was Ptolemy present as a royal representative of Egypt, despite his father’s fall from the throne?

There was also a man I took to be Metrodorus of Scepsis, the so-called Rome-Hater, one of the king’s closest advisors. Kysanias had described the man and told me a little about him the previous night, saying Metrodorus would be the observer around whom we must be most careful, because of his famous ability to remember every detail of everything he saw and heard. Metrodorus had perfected his memory with a method of his own invention, based somehow on the divisions of the zodiac. I wished I could have met him under other circumstances. My father had taught me some simple tricks of memorization, but what might Metrodorus be able to teach me?

Also near the front of the company was a man I assumed to be Monime’s father, Philopoemen. As Episcopus of Ephesus, he carried a staff with a gold knob at the top to show his authority as a royal overseer. I looked at him only for an instant, because I suddenly saw two men farther back in the group, hidden in the shadows until that moment.

The two men stood out for very different reasons, one on account of his size-he was even taller than the king, indeed quite possibly the largest man I had ever seen-and the other because, unlike everyone else, he was dressed in white. The giant had a gaunt, grim face and yellow hair, and held a chain linked to an iron collar around the Roman’s neck-for the other man was most certainly a Roman because he was wearing a toga, and not just any toga but one with a broad purple stripe, marking his status as a promagistrate authorized to wage war. This had to be the captured Roman general, Quintus Oppius, and his keeper was the giant called Bastarna. Kysanias had told me these two might be present, the king’s bully leading the king’s pet Roman on a leash. Standing out because of his toga, was Oppius meant to attract the attention of the Furies and call down their wrath on his fellow Romans?

Kysanias stood before at the opening in the low stone wall. We gathered before him in a semicircle. He addressed us in his deep, commanding voice. “We have arrived at the Grove of the Furies. This stone wall marks the perimeter of the sacred precinct. Except for the sacrificial knife and ax in my hands…” Kysanias held them upright, so that the blades glittered in the torchlight. “Except for these, no weapon of any sort can be allowed beyond this point. If you wish your bodyguards to accompany you, Your Majesty, they must lay down their arms.”

“That will not happen, Your Eminence,” said Mithridates. “These men keep their arms at all times.”

“Then they must remain outside the wall,” said Kysanias. In his voice I heard no quaver of doubt or hesitation, and took heart. Might we succeed, after all?

“Very well,” said the king. “These men will stay here. Except for Bastarna. I want the Roman dog to witness the sacrifice, and someone has to hold his leash. Lay down your weapons, Bastarna.”

The giant made a grumbling noise, but obediently unbuckled the sword and sheathe from his belt and removed several other small knives and bludgeons from his person.

“Does any other man here have a weapon?” asked Kysanias. “If you wish to enter the grove, you must lay it down now. Any weapon present during the ritual is likely to provoke the rage of those we are here to placate.” Kysanias looked at Mithridates as he said these words. Even in Alexandria people knew the story of the concealed blade that Mithridates had used to kill an unsuspecting rival in full view of both their armies, pulling it out of a hiding place next to his genitals after both men had professed to be disarmed.

Kysanias continued to stare at the king. Mithridates gazed back defiantly, but finally reached into his clothing and pulled out a dagger. The silver handle glittered with jewels. He handed it to the captain of his bodyguards.

The man took the dagger reluctantly. “Your Majesty should not go unarmed into a place where his bodyguards cannot follow.”

“But if every other man present is unarmed, there will be no danger,” said Mithridates. His eyes swept across the semicircle of listeners, and for an instant he looked straight at me. Another trickle of sweat worked its way down my spine.

The king’s gaze eventually came to Monime. They smiled at each other, as if at some private joke, and then Monime reached into the folds of black silk and pulled out her own bejeweled dagger, a smaller companion to the one carried by her husband. Mithridates took it and handed it to the captain, who now held a royal dagger in each hand and did not look happy about it.

“Let us enter the grove,” said Kysanias, turning around and leading the way. We followed in single file down the gravel path. No instructions were given; everyone seemed naturally to fall into place. The king went first, with the members of his retinue following, except for the bodyguards, who stayed behind. Then came the Megabyzoi and the Magi, except for Zeuxidemus, who stayed back to usher we so-called witnesses before him. Damianus led Gnossipus by the hand. I followed, with Zeuxidemus behind me.

I glanced back at him. His eyes glittered with excitement. “Have courage!” he whispered.

Yet at that moment, walking toward the black circle of towering trees, my courage reached its lowest ebb. My knees wobbled. My mouth turned dry. The earth tilted beneath me. What madness had possessed me, that I had abandoned the safety of the eunuchs’ house outside Alexandria to come to this godsforsaken spot?

I reached to my breast and clutched the lion’s tooth hanging there. “Cheelba, give me strength!” I dared to whisper.

When I had first looked at the circle of cypress trees, I had seen no place to enter, but there was such a place, a sort of tunnel that had been cut in the dense foliage, just high enough and wide enough for a man to step through. The king had to lower his head, and the light-bearers had to stoop low and carry their torches with outthrust arms. Bastarna the giant had to stoop very low, yanking the Roman general behind him. Except for Zeuxidemus, I entered last of all.

The circle inside the cypress trees was larger than I had expected. It seemed almost as if we had stepped through a magical barrier, that so much space should exist inside a circle that looked so much smaller from the outside. The diameter of the circle was perhaps equal to the height of the surrounding trees. In such a space, there might have been room for a small temple, but there was none. Nor did I see any sort of shrine or any statue or image of the Furies. There was only a large altar in the very center of the space, which appeared to be crafted from a single piece of dark red marble. We did not encircle the altar, but gathered before it, so that our party filled less than half the circle.

The night before, Kysanias had described the space to us and we had worked out how and where each of us should stand. I went to one side of the altar, along with Gnossipus and Damianus. Kysanias went to the other side of the altar, with the Grand Magus next to him. The others gathered at the foot of the altar, with the king and queen foremost. Behind the royal couple stood their retinue, including Antipater and Rutilius, the Magi and Megabyzoi, Ptolemy and Bastarna and the rest.

I gazed up at the circle of starry, moonless sky beyond the treetops. It seemed to me that the circle of trees formed a vertical tunnel, a portal between the night sky and the underworld. What might emerge from such a opening?

Stands for holding torches were set to either side of the altar, near the head, so that one of these stands was not far behind me, and another not far behind Kysanias. All of the dozen or so torches were set into these stands.

The sacred space seemed somehow to enfeeble the torches. They had burned brightly outside the grove, but now began to flicker, providing a fitful, unsatisfactory light.

“We could have done with a few more torches!” muttered the squinting Grand Magus.

It was no accident that only a dozen of the Megabyzoi and Magi carried torches. There should have been twice as many. Kysanias had taken charge of this detail, deliberately limiting the number of torches so we that might have the advantage of semidarkness from the start. The torches were also smaller and more short-lived than the more long-lasting torches normally used for a nocturnal ritual.

When everyone else was assembled, the sacrifice was brought in.

It was just as I had seen in my dream: Freny was naked, with her arms bound to her sides and her mouth gagged, carried by six men. The bearers laid her on the altar and then quickly withdrew. Freny writhed in terror and looked up at the faces around her. When her eyes met mine, she furrowed her brow, at first confused, and then, for one brief instant, hopeful. Then the Grand Magus and Great Megabyzus began reciting an incantation in unison, and I saw the hope die in her eyes. She shut them tightly, like a child refusing to acknowledge the unbearable reality of what was about to happen.