Wrath of the Furies

IV

It was Bethesda’s idea that we should consult a fortune-teller before our departure for Ephesus. Indeed, she insisted on it.

How Bethesda chose this particular fortune-teller, I didn’t know. I had never heard of the woman, despite my network of contacts among the lowlifes and shady characters of Alexandria. Yet somehow Bethesda had chosen this fortune-teller above all others, and insisted that only she would do. I sometimes think there is a secret web, invisible to men, that links all the women of the world.

However that may be, very early on the morning we were to board ship, when a soft light pervaded the sky but the sun had not yet risen, and pockets of pitch-dark night still darkened doorways and the space between buildings, I found myself in a narrow street in the Rhakotis district, the oldest part of Alexandria. Before Alexander drew the boundaries for the great city that would bear his name, and laid out its grid of broad boulevards intersecting at right angles, Rhakotis was a ramshackle fishing village on a barren stretch of coast. Unlike the rest of the city that grew up around it, Rhakotis remains a network of narrow, winding alleyways, so mazelike that a visitor can easily become lost. Rhakotis seems quaint when one visits by daylight, but dangerous after dark.

Rhakotis reminds me of the Subura district in Rome, but is much more cosmopolitan. In the Subura, the stranger who might offer to sell you stolen goods, or invite you to have sex with his sister, or knife you in the back, is almost certain to be a Roman and to speak Latin, but in Rhakotis such a fellow might come from anywhere in the world, have skin of a color never seen in Rome, and speak any of a hundred different languages. The Subura, for all its seedy reputation, seems a rather tame and homey place compared to the exotic seep of vice and menace that is Rhakotis.

The alley down which we ventured that morning was particularly winding and narrow, and stank of cat urine. We arrived at a squat, mud-brick building with a black door upon which was carved the Egyptian symbol called an ankh. Here, according to Bethesda’s information, we would find a fortune-teller called Ameretat. The name sounded neither Greek nor Egyptian; perhaps it was Persian. I knocked on the door. In the predawn stillness, the noise sounded very loud.

The door seemed to open by itself, for I saw no one on the other side. Then I lowered my eyes and perceived a small, shadowy figure no taller than my waist. The child-though I could not see him clearly, I presumed it was a little boy-took a good look at both of us, then without a word let us in.

“Follow,” he said, in a high-pitched but peculiarly husky voice. He carried a small lamp, which provided the only illumination as he led us down a hallway so narrow I banged my elbows against the walls. The place had a peculiar smell, a mixture of incense and stewed onions. We came to a room at the back of the building where the shutters of a high window had been opened to admit the first feeble light of morning. The boy told us to sit, which we did on the rug beneath us, since the room had no furniture. Because she sat on the floor below the window, with the light in her visitors’ eyes, the woman before us appeared as little more than a patch of gray against a field of black. At least I presumed the patch of gray to be a woman, though thus far she had not said a word.

The boy disappeared for a moment, then brought us each a cup of something to drink. The brew was slightly tepid and smelled like the fermented beverage the Egyptians make from grain, a beer with aromatic spices added. It was an old charlatan’s trick, to intoxicate a customer with drugged food or wine-so my father had taught me-and this act of suspect hospitality immediately put me on my guard. When I lowered my cup to the floor without drinking from it, and gestured for Bethesda to do the same, I expected the woman to encourage us to drink, but instead she remained silent. The vague outline amid the shadows seemed less certain than ever. I thought I could make out the shape of a dark cloak and a cowl, but peer as I might, I could see no face within the shadowy folds of cloth. I couldn’t tell if she looked at us or not, or even if she was awake.

Bethesda had arranged ahead of time, with an agent who worked for the fortune-teller, that we should visit Ameretat on this day and at this hour, so of course she knew who we were. Still, it was startling to hear a strange voice from the shadows suddenly speak my name, loudly and with a peculiar accent.

“Gordianus of Rome!” she said. “And you, the slave girl called Bethesda. You come to Ameretat seeking knowledge of what lies ahead, yes?”

Before I could answer, Bethesda whispered, “Yes, Ameretat, we do.” I was about to chide her for speaking out of turn, when Ameretat interrupted me with a laugh.

“You might as well get used to it, Gordianus of Rome,” she said. “Soon enough the slave girl will be doing all the talking, and you will be mute!”

I wrinkled my brow. Just how much had Bethesda told this woman’s agent about my plans and the purpose for my journey? The more a fortune-teller knows about you, the more easily she can spin a tale so as to make herself appear more prescient than she is. So my father had told me.

“First, the payment,” she said. That seemed straightforward enough. I produced a small bag that contained the agreed-upon amount. The boy appeared from the shadows and snatched it from my hand. He emptied the bag onto his cupped palm, counted the coins out loud, and gave the woman a nod.

“Something else I must have, some article of clothing or other item close to you. Your shoes, I think. Yes, each of you, give me a shoe, since it is on a journey of many steps that you are about to embark.”

I slipped off a shoe, and so did Bethesda. The little boy collected them and gave them to the woman. I still couldn’t see her clearly amid the shadows. If anything, as the light from outside very gradually grew stronger, the shadows across from us seemed to grow deeper.

I heard her draw a sharp breath-of surprise, I assumed, for Bethesda and I both were wearing finely crafted footwear of supple leather, with brass buckles for the narrow straps and tiny brass hobnails to secure the soles. Such shoes were far better than anything I would normally have possessed; they had come from the booty of the Nile bandits with whom we both had resided for a while. The woman sighed-with regret, I thought, for she must be thinking that the owner of such fine shoes could have afforded to pay considerably more for her services.

“I see a long journey,” she said. “A journey of many days. Most of your travel will be by sea. Still, many a step each of you will take in these shoes. Friends and foes … but the friend is sometimes not a friend, and the foe not always a foe … a loved one from the past … a trusted teacher … danger … a sacrifice-”

“Danger?” whispered Bethesda.

I shook my head. The woman was speaking gibberish. She could have uttered the same words to any two people going on a long trip, and left it up to her listeners to make out a meaning.

“Danger?” Bethesda repeated. “Who is in danger?”

“I see … a beautiful young girl,” the fortune-teller said.

So do I, I almost said, casting a sidelong glance at Bethesda.

“A virgin girl…”

Ah, well, not Bethesda, then-who looked a bit peeved, I thought, at the mention of this other beautiful girl looming mysteriously in my future. Think nothing of it, I wanted to tell her. These fortune-tellers always throw in a beautiful virgin, don’t they, just to get one’s attention?

Ameretat gasped, and heaved a sigh. “The virgin is soon to be in terrible danger…”

Of losing her virginity, no doubt! I thought these words, but did not speak them. I was finding Ameretat’s performance to be less than impressive, but Bethesda gazed raptly at the shadowy figure, hanging on every word.

“And someone else I see…”

“Who?” I said, growing impatient. “Who else do you see besides the virgin?”

“An old man. Close to you, or close to your thoughts. Not your grandfather, I think. But old, yes. And dear to you-despite the rift between you…”

I shook my head. It was obvious that Bethesda must have given too much information to the so-called fortune-teller’s agent. Such intermediaries were trained to elicit useful details, even from the canniest customer. Having been briefed ahead of time, Ameretat was simply repeating back to me what I already knew.

“I suppose that next you’ll tell me the dear old man is in danger, too?” I said.

“He most certainly is.”

“And that he wants me to come and help him?”

“Most certainly not! For you to join him is the last thing he desires. It is his wish that you should stay far away from him.”

I shook my head. Somewhere between Bethesda and the agent and the fortune-teller, the story must have become garbled, or else Ameretat’s memory had failed her. If anything had been clear to me from the words written by Antipater, it was that he greatly needed and desired my help.

“I intend to go to him, nonetheless,” I said. “I leave this very day-as I’m sure you know. What else awaits me on this journey, besides a virgin in peril and an old man who’s bitten off more than he can chew?” I almost laughed, for it sounded as if I were describing a plot from Plautus.

“If you think a comedy lies ahead of you, young man, think again!” Ameretat seemed to pull the thought from my mind with such precision that I was taken aback.

Suddenly thirsty, I reached for the cup I had earlier put down. I took a cautious sip of the tepid beer and tasted nothing suspicious. I drank the whole cup, thinking I might as well get some value for the money I had spent.

The woman appeared to stir uneasily. It was as if a bundle of rags suddenly became animated and rearranged themselves in the dark corner beneath the window. The feeble light of approaching dawn had grown just bright enough to acquire a pale blue tinge.

When she spoke again, her voice seemed like that of another woman, so strained and unnatural did it sound. “Fool of a Roman, you have no idea what awaits you!” she whispered. “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!”

Bethesda gazed at the darkness below the window. Could her eyes discern what mine could not, a face amid the shadow? She gripped my arm, so hard that I winced at the bite of her fingernails.

“Are we among those rejoicing?” Bethesda whispered. “Or are we among the dead?”

“Neither, I should hope,” I mumbled, feeling a bit unnerved, and not liking the feeling. I shouldn’t have drunk the beer, I thought. The fortune-teller had seen me do it, and had taken it for a sign of weakness. Now she would make her prophecy as alarming as possible, hoping to scare me into giving her more money in the hope that I might avoid some vague catastrophe.

“Where are these streets you speak of?” I asked. “Where are these temples filled with bodies? Are you describing Ephesus-or some other place?” I thought of my father in Rome, and the awful stories I had heard about the fighting and slaughter there. I thought of the death and destruction I had seen with my own eyes in Alexandria during the recent upheaval. Was no place safe?

Again, she seemed to read my thoughts. “Danger is everywhere, yes-but the danger ahead of you is more terrible than you can imagine, you fool of a Roman! The mightiest mortal on earth is about to inflict death and destruction on a scale the world has never seen before. The wrath of those whose very name the ancient poets feared to speak-yes, the wrath of the Furies!-will be unleashed, before which all men flee in terror. Even you, fool of a Roman!”

My head felt light. A chill ran up my spine. Freeing my arm from Bethesda’s grip, I reached for her untouched cup, thinking another drink might settle my nerves. After I drank it down, the chill subsided, but the growing light from the window hurt my eyes. The light was no longer faint blue, but pale yellow. The sun must have just peeked above the eastern horizon.

“What should I do, fortune-teller? Should I go to Ephesus, or not? Will Antipater die if I don’t go? Will he-will he-” The words caught in my throat. Try as I might, I could not speak them aloud. Will he die anyway, whether I go to him or not?

I took a deep breath, and tried to speak again, but the words would not come out.

With a start, I realized that I had been rendered speechless. It was my plan, hatched in a reckless moment, to masquerade as mute-and suddenly I had become so. I felt as if the words themselves were stuffed down my throat. I could not spit them out. I experienced a thrill of panic. The pulse of my heartbeat was loud in my ears. Had the fortune-teller bewitched me? Had I been put under some spell by the contents of the two cups?

I clutched my throat, and squeezed it, striving somehow to loosen the words lodged inside. At last a strangled noise came forth, and all the words piled up behind it came rushing out. “Will Antipater die anyway? Will he die whether I go to him or not?”

Ameretat laughed. “Of course he’ll die! All men die. Did you not know that, Roman?”

“You mock me, fortune-teller! You serve me a strange brew, you take my money, you tell me nothing I don’t already know, and now you mock me!”

She sighed. “You have a tongue to speak, it seems, but you have no ears to hear. This is a waste of my time and yours.”

From the patch of darkness came a slithering sound, and my squinting eyes perceived a vague movement. I decided the fortune-teller had remained unseen for long enough. I rose to my feet and stepped toward her, intending to pull her into the light. I shielded my eyes from the glow of the window, thinking to see her more clearly, but when I reached for what I took to be the cowl of her cloak my hands encountered only a pile of empty cloth with no person inside.

“It’s only a pile of rags!” I said, tossing aside the various pieces until nothing remained and the corner was empty.

“How in Hades…?” I whispered, looking about the room. With my back to the window I could now see Bethesda quite clearly, and the rug on which she sat, and the empty cups on the rug-but nothing else. Except for the two of us, the room was empty. The only way into or out of the room was through the door by which we had entered, or else through the window, and the fortune-teller had exited by neither route, for we would have seen her do so. Unless the room had a trapdoor …

Before I could set about examining the wall and floor beneath the window, a voice called out from the doorway.

“Time to go!”

It was the little boy who had shown us in-or so I thought. But when I looked at the person in the doorway I saw not a boy but a very small woman, her wizened features starkly lit by the morning light from the window.

“Time to go!” she said again.

I frowned. “Who are you? You can’t be the person who greeted us at the door…”

Bethesda, rising from the rug, turned to look at the woman. “Of course it’s the same person, Master. She opened the door for us and showed us in, and brought the two cups.”

“You recognize her?”

“Of course, Master. Do you not?”

“The voice is the same, yes. But I thought…”

“Perhaps you were mistaken. Would it be the first time, Roman?” The dwarfish woman’s wrinkled features were drawn into a smile. I drew a sharp breath. Now she sounded like the fortune-teller!

“Time for you to go!” she said again, clapping her hands for emphasis. She ushered us down the narrow hallway, which was now light enough so that I could avoid banging my elbows. She opened the door and shooed us into the street.

I put my hand on the door before she could close it.

“Who are you?” I said. “What happened here?”

The little woman looked up at me. She sighed. “Alas, Roman, sometimes things are not what they seem.”

“So I’ve discovered. But I would see things as they are.”

“Would you, Roman? Is that truly your desire?”

“Always.”

“Always?” She laughed. “To always and everywhere see things as they truly are-that is not a blessing, Roman, but a curse, and only a handful of mortals must bear it. They are called fortune-tellers.”

“Or finders,” I said, thinking of my father, who strove always to see things as they were. It was from him that I had inherited the same curse, if a curse it was.…

The little woman took advantage of the lapse in my concentration to push the door shut. I heard a bolt fall, and knew she had locked the door.

So ended my visit to Ameretat the fortune-teller.