by Ben Pastor
An old woman came by selling stale bread to feed the ducks, and Aelius bought a round loaf from her. “Yes, but I was shown four of them, including the human-top.”
“Well, that is empty and a copy, because the original was taken along by the emperor. The same goes for the body, missing as far back as Marcus’s reign. It was then that his idiot son Commodus Antoninus had the bright idea of wanting to see what a dead favorite looks like, and was disappointed. As the doggerel went in those days ‘No mummy, no body, no bones / not a dust particle did Commodus find. . . .’ Why the pious fiction, then? It’s obvious. There’s much revenue resulting from the cult of Antinous, so the priests have all the interest in maintaining that the Boy is here, and that oracles and miraculous cures emanate from his remains. Of his, hereabouts there’s the hair by the riverbank, and the intestines, stomach, and lungs in the other three jars.”
Aelius decided to pass under silence Theo’s judgment of Commodus Caesar. Instead, he gave half of the loaf to Theo, adding, “The first cutting of his beard is kept at Eleusis, I have read it in Pausanias. So, what about the body?”
Theo wagged his head. “Were you given one of the mummy cakes they make at the temple? A bit too much anise compared to those you buy on the street, but they aren’t bad. It’s the wine in them that makes them reddish and makes them last a whole day, if you nibble on them.”
“What about the body, Theo?”
Studiously the spice merchant broke the bread in small chunks, piling them on his side of the bench. “Well, it gets complicated after the imperial party leaves Egypt. You know how it is with us Egyptians. No one really knows where Alexander is buried, though they claim it is he under the crystal canopy in Alexandria, but Pella and Ammoneum and a couple of other places claim him, too. The same with Cleopatra and Marc Antony, and were it not for the deified Hadrian who restored the grave site of Caesar’s old enemy, Pompey, we wouldn’t be sure where that general is interred either.” With a moderate gesture, he tossed a handful of crumbs over the banister. “There are several traditions. One maintains that the Boy was buried in or around Rome, in one of the imperial properties there. It is a believable tradition, since several of the dead favorites had been similarly placed by their masters, somewhere nearby, like pets who are stuck in the flower bed with a lily planted over them. Another tradition holds that the remains were carried along to Baiae, where the deified Hadrian passed on, and left there even when the emperor’s body was translated to Rome and into his mausoleum by the Tiber.”
“Credible?”
“Credible, but I doubt it, as by the time of his death Hadrian, though desperately ill, was still hoping to live to see his Tiburtine villa again.”
Spoiled and well-fed, the ducks thought it over before approaching the floating bread, then by habit started eating and soon fighting over it. “Yes.” Aelius stood by the banister to feed the birds below.
“What about the Tiburtine villa?”
“That is another possibility. Many are sure it is exactly there that Antinous lies to this day. You know that great villa is like a city, like a world, and in it the emperor put up copies of the sites and buildings he liked most, or meant most to him, including the sacred temple at Canopus. I have not visited there myself, but was told by a good friend that the Tiburtine Canopus is like an enormous shell placed at the mouth of a river. In this shell, which is gushing with water on all sides, there are statues of Antinous in the Egyptian style, copied from the cult image here in the metropolis, large and showing him like Osiris. Hadrian set up an obelisk there, too, marking in Egyptian characters the spot where the Boy was buried. So, my vote goes to the Tiburtine villa as a grave site.”
“Anything else?”
“Hm, let’s see. I heard tales about the great temple of Firstborn Fortune at Praeneste as a possible resting place for the Boy, but don’t know much more than that. Except that there is a mosaic in the temple—some say it belongs to the age of Alexander, some that it was placed there by the deified Hadrian after his return from Egypt—showing the whole course of the Nile. So it’s an Egypt in effigy, so to speak.”
“Similar to the one on the deck of the imperial barge?”
“Something like it, no doubt. I wonder how likely it is for Antinous to be buried at Praeneste, but it is a commanding monument from what I hear, and the cult of Antinous is celebrated there, too. But, of course, so it is in Bithynia, throughout Greece, at Lanuvium, Alexandria, the Delta, and so on. All I can tell you for sure is that the body isn’t here at Antinoopolis, mummy cakes or not.”
Systematically, Aelius had divided and cast some of his bread, favoring a crooked duck that swam with a list. “One last question.”
“Related to this?”
“No. It is about Serenus Dio: Do you think it was an accident?”
“I do not. However, I have no suspects in mind. I think it was a vendetta of some kind. By whom? Take your pick—Serenus had a finger in every conceivable moneymaking scheme, and often feared repercussions. Harpocratio pleads poverty these days, but I bet the thieves didn’t find one tenth of what those two had stashed away.”
Aelius glanced over. “Would he entrust some of his riches to others?”
“Friends, you mean? No, he was smarter and not so deluded about human nature as that. He occasionally gave us who knew him best this or that antique he didn’t want to put into storage or clutter his house with, but nothing ever of real value.” Theo tossed the rest of the bread to the ducks, freeing his palms of the crumbs with a clapping gesture. “Take me, for example. Toward the end of Pachon—yes, about the third week in May—Serenus gave me a wooden crate to keep. After he died, I figured it wouldn’t hurt just taking a look inside. Well, what do you think? There were a couple of cheap carpets rolled up inside, and a leather saddlebag so worn and brittle, it must have come to Egypt with Julius Caesar. No, I didn’t open that—what was the point? I still have the crate in my junk storeroom, and unless Harpocratio asks for it, I’m going to have it hauled out to the dump.”
It took all of Aelius’s self-control (he’d been complimented on it by His Divinity on one occasion, and had worked at perfecting it ever since) not to betray his interest. He busily tore bits of bread from the loaf and tossed them to the ducks, giving himself time to sound natural before speaking again.
“I see your point,” he said carelessly, though he was actually raking his brains to find a way to secure a look at the crate, or the saddlebag itself, without giving any of his information away. “One more thing, on a completely different matter. Does your sister still stay at the same place?”
“Which sister? I have two.”
“Thermuthis.”
Theo laughed. “Of course, I knew that. I like to make men own up to it, though. Yes, she’s there. And while everyone else in the business scaled down after the Rebellion, she’s added one floor to her house.” Pulling back from the parapet, he went to sit on the bench. “So, you really went to our baths on Philopator Street just by accident, as Harpocratio says. Some of my friends were asking whether you—”
“No, I meant to go to those baths, not knowing. If I went again, it’d have to be by accident.”
“Pity.”
In his studio, after leaving Theo with an acquaintance who’d met them as they walked back, Aelius had to force himself to sit down and think things over. Antinous might not be buried in Egypt after all, which begged the question of where his historical search would lead him next. Meanwhile, coincidence or not, two men in whose possession Hadrian’s letter had been, were dead. There was no assurance that the saddlebag Serenus had left with Theo was one and the same, but in good conscience he could not expose the spice merchant to risk danger for it. Visiting the merchant’s storeroom would alert potential killers, so he had to send somebody unsuspected to fetch the saddlebag. He hoped against hope that somehow, after writing to him, Serenus had changed his mind and either not entrusted the imperial letter to his unlucky freedman Pammychios, or taken it back f
rom him to deposit it with Theo.
Once more surrounded by his books and journals, Aelius went over the options he’d been considering ever since his conversation by the duck pond. None of them, he feared, would ensure the secrecy of his errand. Whether he sent word to Harpocratio or went directly, to tell him he wished to acquire the crate at Theo’s, he’d alert him to the possible value of its contents; the same would be true if he directly showed an interest with Theo. In either case, were Hadrian’s letter miraculously still inside the saddlebag, its very existence would be revealed. If the saddlebag was empty, he’d have to admit that—for whatever reason—someone else was interested in it enough to kill.
He leafed through his papers without seeing them, consumed by the need to solve his immediate problem. Asking about Thermuthis had deflected any appearance of keenness about the saddlebag on his part, and now he saw that it had not been mere diversion. He had meant to ask about her, for reasons of his own. Perhaps—once he was done reading a miscellanea of purported sayings, jokes, and anecdotes by the deified Hadrian—it might come in handy to go see her in the morning.
Joke ascribed to the deified Hadrian:
A lusty matron was so fond of her horses that she wished they were young men to sport with. Especially, she loved her favorite roan Incitatus, and ardently prayed to Diana that she would metamorphose it into a man. During the festival in her honor, the goddess herself appeared to the matron in a dream, and bade her go to the stable to see her wish come true. The woman did so, and to her delight discovered that the roan had become a handsome fellow, and well-built and tender as he’d been as a horse, so he was as a man. At once they threw themselves, into each other’s arms, kissing and caressing and calling each other pet names. Before long, the thrilled matron urged him to join her in her alcove, but at this the handsome Incitatus fell to her feet weeping and pulling his hair. “Mistress, mistress,” he cried out, “do you not recall you made me into a gelding?”
26 Payni (21 June, Wednesday)
He knew the way there, what with its nearness to the frog goddess temple, what with the unmistakably expensive street on which the four-story bordello looked. He’d spent a small fortune making love to Thermuthis first—as had Tralles and the rest of the well-paid young field officers—and then nearly as much hiring Anubina night after night, twice arriving there with the blood of battle still on him, until Thermuthis had suggested that he take the girl for the season. The first thing Anubina had asked for was a doll. Now the same Anubina could say, looking out of the door of her blue house, “We’re building. I’m happy,” and likely mean it as much as he still meant it when he’d told himself that he still loved her a little.
Thermuthis’s hair was less lustrous, but still red and wavy and tastefully arranged, as indeed everything was elegant and businesslike in her establishment. She received him in a small parlor that could have been the front office for a charitable institution as much as for a music school, so unrevealing it was of the riotous possibilities just one floor up.
When Aelius said he needed an answer from her, and a piece of advice, she raised her eyebrows. “Is that all?” she said. “I had heard you were in town. It’s taken you some time to come see me. For a moment, there, I thought you’d decided to patronize the Alexandrian.”
“Isidora? Not likely.” Mention of her great rival during the Rebellion made Aelius think better than to try to hug her, since Thermuthis was not one to be coaxed. After all, he needed her help to secure the saddlebag, madams being better informed and connected than anyone else in this, or any, town of the Empire.
“Well, no matter,” Thermutis was adding. “You look well. I knew you’d grow gray early, thick-haired blonds always do. So, do I set you up for the night, or are you looking for a longer arrangement?”
“I actually came to talk about Anubina.”
“Ah, so that’s the question. You’ll have to take it up with her husband then. She’s married, don’t you know?”
“I know.”
Thermuthis had green eyes, and even when she spoke sympathetically, they seemed cool because of that catlike color. “You can do much better than that. I have young things two-thirds her age.”
“No, I mean to know about her daughter, whether she’s mine.”
“Just what do you have in mind, Aelius Spartianus?”
“Nothing of that sort. It matters to me to know if I made her.”
“Made her. How typical. You men don’t make anything, except love. It was Anubina who made her two children.”
“Whatever, Thermuthis. She won’t tell me who the father is.”
She pointed to a settee. “And I will? Come, Spartianus, you can’t be in a hurry. Sit down and let us catch up with one another before getting down to any business—including the help you want from me.
30 Payni (25 June, Sunday)
The place was as Theo had described it, only wilder. The north-south ledge road that ran above it, shadeless, devoid of houses, fences, or shrubs, ran perfectly straight, and from where Aelius stood, it seemed as though following it might lead to the end of the earth. To the north lay what had once been the irrigated estates belonging to the long-vanished community of Her-wer, in the old XV nome of Un. Bought and kept up until a few years ago by Roman veterans, they’d been left fallow on account of a dispute since the Rebellion, and would unlikely be brought back to fertility during his lifetime. The wind had desiccated them and combed them over with dust.
At the foot of the ledge, straight below, in sharp contrast, the river bank appeared unruly, lush. The Nile, swift and already muddy at the center ran sluggish on this side of the sandbar, by which alone the site of the body’s finding could be identified. A couple of pale willow trees struggled to rise up from a rank growth of papyrus plants, and these, crowding the water’s edge, shaded it with their reddish, feathery flowering heads. Too impractical to reach, this grove had been left untouched by the recent harvest, and now some of the plants measured eight feet at least of brilliant emerald green. Within two weeks it would all be under water.
Judging it too intricate and undisturbed a vegetation for crocodiles to be hiding in it, Aelius left his horse on the ledge and came down, sliding on the sandy loam first, then on the grasses, until he reached the water. His boots sank into the mud, then found rocks to stand on. Up to his knees in the river, he oriented himself according to Theo’s details. The empty surface of the river, high already, and likely to cover sandbar and inlet even before the precipitous July tide broke through, flickered like brilliant embers as the wind raked it, and the coast beyond it drew itself minimum-red. No doubt, even since Theo’s youth, the sandbar had shifted and been reshaped by the yearly floods; so Aelius determined the possible position of the marker from the profile of the bank on this side of the Nile. According to Theo’s directions, the river created an inlet, at whose center the marker lay. Reeds and papyrus plants made the edges of the inlet hardly visible, but the ledge was recessed, and by stepping to the right he ought to approach the central point of it.
The odor rising from the place was of decaying plants, of earth dissolving in water, of different leaves giving out a wet, green scent. On the sandbar, herons and awkward red-legged blue birds stood among the rushes and did not mind him. All around, as Aelius regained the marshy bank, darting movements in the grass were too inconsequential to indicate danger, unless by snakes, and the army boots could withstand snake bites and more.
So, this was the site of a long-past episode of grief. There was nothing in the calm of the day to indicate any of that, human emotions dissolved as if they had never existed. Aelius began looking for the marker, supposed to be a truncated pyramid or other such solid, according to Theo’s words, about three feet high. And the uncontrolled papyrus stalks here and there had the diameter of a man’s wrist.
It came to his mind as he searched—out of the odd void wherefrom memory flows—that the night before he’d dreamed of his own childhood on the frontier, a winter day of shoveling
snow. The day his father had sent him out and drowned his dog Sirius, because in the new assignment no animals were allowed. Digging in the snow bank, he’d unexpectedly found Sirius’s collar, and had picked it up with a sick feeling, stumbling back into the family quarters in time to see his father toss the drenched carcass of the dog out of the back door. Tears—a reaction amazing to him—came to his eyes even as he leaned over to part the muddy grass, because he had never wanted to remember the day, never wanted to own a dog again, and never forgiven his father for it. It seemed somehow a safe and lonely place to let go a little, and be himself even as he carried out Caesar’s bidding. Other melancholies, other regrets were surely at play, but those—those had best be left alone for now.
