Wrath of the Furies

II

“That final, incomplete sentence-how do you suppose it would end?” asked Berynus.

I was back at the eunuchs’ house after a long, busy day in the city. The hour was late, but my hosts often stayed up well past sunset, talking and dining by starlight and the soft glow of lamps on the roof terrace. With the sound of waves gently lapping the beach as backdrop, the setting could not have been more serene, even as my own state of mind could not have been more turbulent. In my distress, I had taken both of them into my confidence, explaining the circumstances of my parting with Antipater and reading the fragment aloud to them.

Holding the scrap of parchment in my hand, by the light of a nearby lamp I stared at the familiar handwriting. “What comes next? I suppose … I suppose it would say: ‘If anybody … if anybody could help me, it would be … Gordianus.’”

“You’re certain this was written by Antipater?” asked Kettel, giving me a quizzical look and lacing his pudgy fingers beneath his multiple chins.

“Absolutely. The handwriting is unmistakable.”

“And that’s all that arrived, that single scrap of parchment?” said Berynus, pursing his thin lips.

“Yes. The fragment begins and ends in mid-sentence. Clearly, it’s been taken from some longer piece of writing.”

“From a letter, perhaps?” said Kettel.

“Not a letter addressed to me, obviously, since he refers to me in the third person. Not a letter at all, I suspect. And certainly not an official document of any sort, or something meant for publication; that would have been dictated to a scribe, while this is in his own hand. It seems to have been written more to himself than to someone else. Or written for posterity. It’s as if Antipater wanted to record the events going on around him.”

“But why?” asked Berynus.

“Because he has a story to tell, but fears that he may not be around to tell it much longer. These words were written by a frightened man. A man who fears for his life.” I sighed and lowered the piece of parchment. “And here I am in Egypt, frittering away my time, unable to help him.”

“I thought you parted on bad terms with the old fellow,” said Kettel.

“What if I did? He still thinks of me fondly. He says so in this fragment. He wishes that I were with him.”

“He doesn’t actually say that.” This came from Bethesda, who sat on a rug before me, massaging my feet, which were sore from so much walking that day. My hosts had grown used to my slave’s unruly manners and my tendency to indulge her, and hardly raised an eyebrow when she made bold to enter the conversation.

“He doesn’t say what?” I asked.

Bethesda raised an eyebrow and resumed massaging my feet. “He doesn’t say that he wishes you were with him, Master. What he actually says is that he could use someone with certain of your qualities. That is not exactly the same thing.” Like many who cannot read, Bethesda was a careful listener and had a sharp memory.

I laughed. “You sound like a Roman lawyer, splitting hairs! Though you hardly look like one.” The soft light of the lamps picked out glints of many colors amid her black tresses, and the creamy smoothness of her forehead and cheeks shone like ivory. “The point is clear: Antipater desperately needs someone to help him, someone he can trust. Instead, he finds himself alone, and in terrible danger.”

“Whose fault is that?” asked Kettel. “From what you’ve told us, Gordianus, the whole time the two of you traveled together, your old tutor was secretly spying for King Mithridates. And no sooner did he reveal the truth to you here in Alexandria than he vanished, leaving you to fend for yourself. Well, now you know where he ended up. He’s in Ephesus, residing with this old pupil of his, Eutropius-another supporter of Mithridates, from the way Antipater describes him. So he’s hardly alone, is he? He and his host should both be happy, since the king has virtually driven the Romans out of Asia.”

“And yet,” I said, “Antipater doesn’t feel safe, even in the house of Eutropius. He fears for his life, and the source of his fear appears to be the king himself-or else the ‘vicious little queen,’ as Antipater calls her. Somehow Antipater must have offended them, and now he fears he may be killed at any moment.”

“If your old tutor has been swept up in the dangers of court intrigue, that’s not your fault, Gordianus,” said Kettel. “Spying is a dangerous profession. It requires deceiving people. What is a spy, but a master of deception-and who can trust such a man, or ever be certain where his loyalties lie? Believe me, no one is more suspicious and distrustful than a king. When Berynus and I served in the royal palace under King Ptolemy, we saw many a shady character come and go. Some received great rewards at the whim of our master. Others lost their heads. Not a few met with both fates-first the reward, then the beheading.”

An image flashed in my mind: Antipater with his neck on an executioner’s chopping block, and the blade descending, hewing his head from his shoulders, sending his white-bearded, white-haired head tumbling off in one direction while blood spurted from his decapitated neck. I gasped and gave such a jerk that Bethesda clutched my feet to steady me.

“There are other questions that need to be asked,” said Berynus, frowning and training his beady gaze on me. “If this ‘fragment,’ as you call it, wasn’t sent to you by Antipater, then who did send it, and how did the sender come into possession of it? And why was it sent to you, here in Egypt? This odd, orphaned scrap of parchment was sent to you by an unknown person with an unknown agenda. There’s court intrigue behind this, I’ll wager. And you, Gordianus, would do well to stay clear of it.”

Kettel nodded sagely, compressing his multiple chins. “Or it may be that this scrap comes not from a secret diary but from a letter written by Antipater-a letter not addressed to you, Gordianus, and therefore none of your business. Or…” He narrowed his eyes until they were almost lost between his fat cheeks and the furrows of his forehead, and his pupils glinted like shards of glass reflecting the starlight. “Or could it be that Antipater is behind the whole thing-that the master spy contrived this ‘fragment’ as ruse to stir your sympathy, and sent it to you anonymously.”

“But for what possible purpose?” I said.

Kettel and Berynus answered in unison: “To lure you to Ephesus!”

I shook my head. “Such an idea is … utterly fantastic. If Antipater wanted me to join him, he would simply write to me and say so.”

“After the things he did to you?” said Kettel.

“Lying to you, betraying you, making a fool of you?” added Berynus.

“I wouldn’t exactly say that Antipater made a…” I shook my head. What they said was true. If Antipater had written to me openly, I would have broken the seal on such a letter with my guard up, bristling with resentment before I read a single word. The fragment had effected quite a different response; it caught me off-guard and sent me reeling with puzzlement and alarm. If Antipater wanted to elicit my sympathy rather than my suspicion, sending such a contrived document in place of a letter would be one way to do it. But was Antipater that devious?

“Either your old tutor wants to lure you to Ephesus, or someone else does,” said Berynus. “What other result could the sender be hoping for?”

“Perhaps this was sent by someone who cares about Antipater, someone who wants to help him,” I said.

“In that case, why did this person not write to you directly, and ask for your help?” Kettel shook his head. “No, for such a ‘fragment’ to land in your lap, without any explanation, with no clue as to who sent it or why-someone is up to no good.”

Had I been as old and experienced as the two retired eunuchs, I probably would have been as cautious and suspicious as they were. But I was still young and not as wise in the ways of the world as I one day would be.

I looked again at the fragment.

I am in great danger, I read. I fear for my life every hour of every day.

I lowered the scrap of parchment and stared beyond the parapet of the roof terrace. At the distant horizon, the night sky met the sea-two endless voids of darkness pricked with countless tiny stars and the reflections of stars. Somewhere in that direction lay Ephesus.

“I must go to Ephesus,” I said.

Both eunuchs sighed and threw up their hands. Bethesda dropped my feet, which fell to the rug with a thump.

“Gordianus, do you not understand the danger?” said Berynus. “You’re a Roman, and there’s no disguising the fact. Your Greek is quite good-for someone who didn’t grow up speaking it. But your Latin accent will always give you away. You know what they say: ‘You can take the boy out of Rome…’”

“Yes, I’m a Roman. What of it?”

“Do you not understand the situation in the cities and provinces that Mithridates has liberated from Roman control? In those places, to be a Roman is no longer a guarantee of privilege. Quite the opposite. Across much of Asia, many people hate the Romans and were glad to see them toppled from power.”

“But not every Greek hates every Roman. Antipater says as much in this fragment. Eutropius, for example-”

“An Ephesian who hates the Romans less than some, and why? Because you, a Roman, saved his daughter’s life! This Eutropius is hardly a representative example, Gordianus.”

What Berynus said was true. In my travels with Antipater, many a native Greek-speaker had shown resentment and unfriendliness toward me, for no other reason than because I was a Roman. This anti-Roman sentiment had been especially evident in Ephesus.

“But not every Roman has been driven out of Asia,” I said. “The Roman legions have been defeated and pushed back, and one hears that many Romans have fled-some of them have sailed here to Alexandria as refugees. But many a Roman citizen, along with his family and dependents, must still reside in the cities taken by Mithridates. All those Roman bankers and merchants, and the Romans who oversee the slave markets, and the Romans who run mines and farms-”

“Yes, Gordianus, thousands of Romans, or perhaps tens of thousands, may yet remain in Ephesus and the other cities of Asia,” said Berynus. “But they are no longer in control of the banks or running the marketplaces. Mithridates has stripped them of their power and their possessions. Their situation is quite precarious.”

“But I’m not a banker or a greedy merchant,” I said. “I’ve never hurt or exploited any of those people.”

“But you are a Roman, nonetheless. And this is not a time for any Roman to plan a trip to Ephesus!”

I frowned, then raised an eyebrow. “If it’s my accent that always gives me away, then perhaps I can simply keep my mouth shut.”

Kettel smiled. “That hardly seems practical. How would you pull that off, by pretending to be a mute?”

I gazed at the dark horizon and blinked. “Why not?”

“But how would you make your way, or ask directions, or accomplish anything else you needed to do? Absurd!” Kettel laughed and slapped a meaty hand against his knee.

Berynus made a sour face. “I fear our young Roman friend has made up his mind not only to go to Ephesus, but to travel under pretense of being mute. A Roman who lacks the power of speech-a double handicap!”

They were right. I was letting my imagination run ahead of me. A trip to Ephesus inevitably would entail unforeseen difficulties and some degree of danger. To make my way without ever uttering a word would likely be impossible. Unless …

“What if I traveled with someone?” I said. “Someone who could speak for me?”

“Who would that be?” asked Kettel, pursing his lips at my foolishness. “Some urchin hired at the waterfront, who’s likely to steal your money and run off the first chance he gets-or worse, betray you to some petty official the moment you get to Ephesus, and laugh while they lock you in a cell and throw away the key?”

I shook my head. “It would have to be someone I trust, of course. Someone I already know. Someone who knows me, well enough to speak for me if we should find ourselves in a tight spot. But who?”

I had made numerous acquaintances during my months in Alexandria, but who among them was suited to be my traveling companion on such a journey, and would be willing to do so?

Another man’s slave, young Djet, had accompanied me on my recent journey into the wilds of the Nile Delta. Sometimes Djet had been a great help to me; at other times, a handicap. At any rate, it was unlikely that his master would allow me to take the boy on such a long journey, so soon after our return.

The two eunuchs were among the more respectable people I knew, and had become my closest friends, but they certainly had no intention of going with me. Most of my contacts in the city were not nearly as reputable or trustworthy. As I went down the list in my head, I was struck by the number of actors and street mimes with whom I was acquainted, not to mention professional informers and poison merchants, purse-snatching street urchins and tattletale slaves. To be sure, I knew a few philosophers and scholars as well, but I could hardly expect those men to accompany me on such an uncertain journey.

Bethesda cleared her throat. I looked down at my feet on the rug-she had not picked them up after letting them drop-and then past my feet, to see her sitting back with her head cocked to one side, staring at me with that indecipherable catlike expression of hers.

I looked at the eunuchs. They, too, were staring at me with curious expressions. They seemed to be amused at my confusion.

“Did I miss something?” I said.

“Only the most obvious solution to your dilemma,” said Berynus. “The answer is right in front of you.”

I frowned and shook my head. What was he talking about?

Berynus looked at me askance, with the haughty, exasperated expression typical of royal bureaucrats everywhere. “Literally: right in front of you. Oh, come now, Gordianus, must I point at the girl to make you see?” He extended a bony finger in the direction of Bethesda, who was now looking at me with the slightest hint of a smile.

“Take Bethesda with me? Of course not!” Though I had not yet thought that far ahead, in the back of my mind I had assumed that she would stay with the two eunuchs while I was gone. To take her with me would be to put her in danger, and that was the last thing I wanted to do. Bethesda had faced more than enough danger in the last months, thanks to the kidnappers who had taken her off to the Nile Delta. The separation had been painful for me; after finally getting her back I was not eager to be separated again, but to take her with me was surely not a good idea.

Or was it?

All three of them stared at me, and then all three began to laugh. Kettel’s chortle was low and rumbling, that of Bethesda was musical, while the laughter of Berynus had a dry, reedy sound. Combined with the sighing of the waves, their amusement made a strange kind of music.

“What are you all laughing about? I was thinking I could leave Bethesda here. I realize it’s a bit of an imposition. She can be rather troublesome, I know, but you might get some work out of her, to make it worth your while. I can pay for her to be fed, of course…”

I looked from face to face. They seemed not to have heard me.

It was Bethesda who finally spoke. “Master, I have no intention of being left behind.”

I blushed a bit, chagrined that the eunuchs should hear my slave speak to me in such a way. “Bethesda, whether you go or not is for me to decide.”

“Well put, Gordianus!” said Kettel. “And of course you must decide to take her with you.”

I shook my head. “I think not.”

“Think again! Did you not just hear her? The slave speaks perfectly passable Greek, with an Alexandrian accent. No one in Ephesus will think of Rome when she opens her mouth. And if she says her master-her mute master-is a native Egyptian of Greek descent, no one will think to question that, either. As to why you might be traveling with such an interpreter … well, no one who sees Bethesda will wonder why you wish to keep her by your side.” Kettel cast a sidelong glance at Bethesda, and I was reminded that even eunuchs are not entirely immune to the allure of a voluptuous young female.

Bethesda narrowed her eyes and gave me an inquisitive look. “Well, Master, how soon shall we leave for Ephesus?”