The Eternal Banquet

by Jennifer Macaire

  The Celts were also a monogamous people. The women in Celtic tribes had more power than any other women of that time. I had seen many affectionate gestures between husband and wife, and also between men and between women. The Celtiberians were a savage tribe who loved to make war. Their men joined the army for life and lived together with a partner like the Thracians.

  What was normal? I had no idea. I think that the world was still young and malleable at that time, and easily accepting of everyone’s lifestyles.

  We started rowing as soon as it was cooler. If we didn’t make shore soon, our water supply would run out. That night, after five days of maddening heat and becalmed seas, we reached choppy water and a breeze came from the mainland to greet us. When dawn poked her rosy fingers above the horizon, we stood on deck and breathed deeply, the wind lifting the hair off our shoulders and putting a sparkle in our eyes. The chickens relaxed and went back to scratching in their hay and clucking, and the goats bleated contentedly as they butted their heads against the slats of their cages. Alexander was seasick again but, as he said, smiling wanly, at least he wasn’t dying of the heat any more.

  The current carried us towards the Mediterranean at a fast clip because the Atlantic Ocean was less salty than the inland sea. On the surface, the fresher, ocean water was drawn into the Mediterranean, while deep currents carried the saltier seawater out to the ocean. The result was a heavy chop with the boat being carried along like a cork.

  Chapter Two

  We reached the Pillars of Hercules early the following day. In good spirits, we hoisted the sails higher and sailed along the coast. The Mediterranean was only five kilometres across from Europe to Africa at that point. We were on the European side. Phaleria wanted to trade for pewter before heading across to Africa and Carthage.

  The villages of the Celtiberian tribes along the coast were independent. They were ruled by chieftains. Later, perhaps in fifty or a hundred years, Carthage would conquer the Iberian coast and wipe out or enslave most of the villages. Carthage wanted to control the silver and pewter mines the Iberians had exploited since the dawn of time. Rome would then defeat Carthage, and the Iberians would be absorbed into the immense Roman Empire, their culture gone forever.

  This was an opportunity to study the Iberian civilization first-hand, I thought to myself, as we tied the boat to a huge iron ring set into a stone dock. The time-travel journalist part of me was thrilled. I wished – for the millionth time – that I had a holo-cam with me to record everything, but I’d have to make do with my diary, which I tucked into my bag and carried everywhere. Everyone at that time had a diary – some were amazing. Plexis was a talented artist, and Nearchus, though he spoke little, was a captivating writer.

  We arrived at a pleasant-looking place with cultivated land reaching up the mountain’s flank and a fortified citadel on the hillside. After we left the fishing village, we took a wide sandy road through groves of almond and fruit trees up the hill towards the city. We walked slowly, savouring air that was warm and fragrant with the scents of peaches, almonds, and woodsmoke. We were hoping to find rooms in a comfortable inn. We were heartily tired of sharing the same cramped space, sleeping on linen-covered hay, and washing with salt water.

  Along the road, women carried clay water jugs on their heads as they returned from their evening trip to the wells, with children tagging at their heels. The sky was deep violet, the sun had set and the only shadows were cast by torches planted every twenty metres or so along the white sand road. In the dusk, tree trunks looked ghostly. Shepherds gathered around small fires and the scent of cooking meat wafted to us, making our mouths water.

  The road followed the natural curve of the land, rounding the base of a hill then climbing steadily in a spiral. The sprawling citadel, built right at the very top, was further than it had first seemed, and to get to it we had to cross a long bridge spanning a deep chasm.

  Alexander examined everything with the interest of a born conqueror, judging the width and depth of the chasm, the height of the walls, and the best way to attack.

  ‘I like the idea of the wall there, it looks haphazard, but it’s not. See how the road curves sharply? An army trying to sneak up on the city will be obliged to group tightly to get past that bend, and then you’ve got them.’ Alexander sounded wistful. ‘The defenders can shower them with spears. The attackers would be helpless unless they adopted the rectangular shield I perfected. Remember, Plexis?’ His voice brightened.

  Plexis looked at him over his shoulder and flashed a grin. In the dark, his teeth gleamed. ‘With the rectangular shields held over their heads they could protect themselves from above and the wall would become a liability instead of an advantage for the defenders.’

  ‘Be quiet, you two,’ I said, taking Alexander by the hand. ‘We’re tourists, remember?’

  ‘Tourists?’ Alexander looked surprised and then grinned. ‘I forgot, as usual. So, tell me what you know about this place, Ashley. What will become of it? Will it resist the forces of time? Or will it too turn to dust and the mountain free its shoulders of its stone trappings?’

  ‘It will become a city called Malaga, I believe. It won’t be built in the same spot, but it will be nearby. The vineyards will remain, the port as well. It will prosper. Its geographical placement lends itself to a logistical necessity, a link between the mountains and the inland tribes and trade. It will become a chic tourist resort, and in my time, it is a cultural centre for holo-ship voyages.

  ‘I forgot how pedantic you could be,’ Plexis sighed, turning to peer at me. ‘And how frighteningly cold you sound sometimes. I still get the chills when I remember what you said about Babylon.’ He was teasing me, a sparkle in his amber eyes.

  ‘I think it’s interesting,’ said Paul, linking his arm through mine. ‘Tell me more, Mother. Wasn’t it “Spain” on the map you made me?’

  I nodded, content with my son. I gave lessons to Paul in the evenings; ‘future’ lessons as opposed to history lessons, using a map I’d painstakingly drawn of the modern world. Axiom took care of the history, and Alexander tutored him in maths and science. Plexis taught him riding, fencing, and Greek; Demos taught him cuneiform writing and Persian; Phaleria gave him lectures on trading and the geography of the coast and Gaul; and Nearchus taught him navigation and astronomy. Everything a ten-year-old should study in that time. When he got back to Alexandria, Paul would take up his lessons with his tutor and add epic poetry, the classics, religion, Egyptian, and Latin.

  I insisted on teaching him Latin, much to Alexander’s amusement.

  ‘Latin? No one speaks Latin. Teach him Greek, or Phoenician. Everyone speaks those languages.’

  ‘Not for long,’ I said. ‘It will be good if he learns Latin, then he can teach his own sons.’

  ‘Yes, but your accent is strange. At least let’s hire a real Roman and let him do the job correctly.’

  ‘Good idea; we’ll take care of that when we reach Rome,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, we can buy a slave,’ said Alexander, giving a wink. He knew how I felt about that.

  ‘Very funny. Are we almost there? I’m starving, I’m tired, and I want a bath.’

  We entered the city through a large archway made with flat slabs of rock. It was like a tunnel, and we stopped speaking as we walked through its blackness. When we reached the other side, I uttered a sigh of relief. I hated the feeling of being hemmed in. A legacy of spending one year in a stone prison.

  The dark tunnel led directly onto the main street where torches burned brightly, lighting the way for us. The sandy road underfoot changed to cobblestone, with raised wooden sidewalks lining the road on either side. Very Celtic. We strolled along the main street, admiring the two and three-storey houses made of stone, brick, and wood. The windows were large, with wooden shutters to keep out the sun and ventilation holes along the tops to let air in during the long, hot days. Balconies made of forged iron were fixed on the second storeys and held up with wooden beams. Woman set their looms o
n them during the cooler part of the days, and at night families sat there and watched the crowds below.

  The prosperous city was crowded, full of traders from all over: Greeks; Phoenicians; Egyptians; Gauls; Romans; and Celts. The Celtiberians distinguished themselves from their neighbours by the way they dressed. The men wore vests over their bare chests, and tied large, colourful belts around their waists to hold up their pants, whereas the Gauls tended to wear suspenders and undershirts.

  The Celtiberian warriors were also fond of putting chalk and water in their hair and then letting it dry into fantastic shapes: huge points, curving horns like bull’s horns, and spikes all over their heads. Very odd. I tried not to stare.

  Our innkeeper greeted us warmly. He bowed, as was the custom, and welcomed us with a bowl of olives and pewter tankards of cool water. He wore his dark hair in braids, like most Celts, and he shaved his beard but had a drooping black moustache. His eyes were very black and his skin was pale. A true Celtiberian. Their skin would become darker when the Moors crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and took control of the peninsula for a brief time. He put a linen towel over his arm and showed us to a free table, telling us that dinner that night was roast goat with olive sauce, fresh fish, pickles, a salad of almonds and peaches, hard cheese made from sheep’s milk, with wine or water to drink.

  Dinner was delicious. We ate sitting on a bench at a long, wooden table. We watched the rest of the customers, listened to their conversations but spoke very little ourselves. We were tired, and the boisterous crowd, after the silence of the ocean, made our heads spin.

  Afterwards, we made our way to the baths; a stone building set up near the village well. The brick bathhouse was built in a circle. Stone arches held a roof supported by wooden beams and covered in clay tiles. Women and men didn’t bathe together. Every four hours the heated pool was emptied and a new group could wash. Before Phaleria and I could go to bathe, we had to wait until the men had finished. Meanwhile, we joined the line of women waiting to enter the baths.

  The baths were heated Roman-style. A separate building housed a fire, and the heat was channelled through pipes under the round bathhouse. The water was about waist deep, and a bench ran around the entire pool, so people could sit and chat. There was some lye soap and shampoo, but I had my own from Gaul that I hoarded preciously.

  After Phaleria and I had bathed, we floated in the warm water. I lay in the water, my hair floating around me, my arms and legs loose and wonderfully relaxed. Through the arches, I could see the night sky. Stars appeared like bright sparkles of diamonds in black velvet, their éclat unrivalled by electric lights.

  Although people strolling by couldn’t see into the baths, I could see flickering torches and the tops of the taller people’s heads. The baths were Roman in architecture, a sure sign of their encroachment. But baths like this were still a rarity. The innkeeper spoke of them as if they were the eighth wonder of the world. People didn’t take them for granted yet. And they were expensive enough to be available to only a certain class of people, unlike the public baths in Greece and Rome, which were free to their citizens – tourists had to pay, and slaves weren’t admitted into the baths anywhere.

  A bell rang, signalling time to change the water. We had to leave. I sighed regretfully and stood up, squeezing the water out of my hair. Phaleria admired the bump my belly had started to make. I was now four months pregnant.

  She was longing to have a baby but, so far, three months had gone by and each time she’d been disappointed. I told her not to worry and to let time take its course. I also told her to stand on her head the next time she made love. Well, it couldn’t hurt. We dressed and went to join our men, who had been waiting for us near the fountain. Afterwards, we strolled through the city, watching glass-workers ply their trade, admiring the pewter wares set out for sale, and listening to various street musicians, gossip, and newscasters.

  The newscasters usually stood on a raised platform and held a scroll in their hands. When you dropped a coin in the basket – or hat – at their feet, they obliged you by reading the daily – or weekly or monthly – news. Usually well informed, these men started with the day’s trading costs, giving the exchange rates, and telling which merchants were selling what wares. Then they moved on to the news about the town and the surrounding countryside, and then gave the news about the rest of the known world.

  We found a newscaster and paid him, gathering around him to listen to the news. The man cleared his throat in an important manner and started reading from his long scroll.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Nearchus, raising his hand, ‘but could you speak in Greek?’ Nearchus spoke a little Celt, but not enough for the news. And Celtiberians had their own dialect.

  The man raised his beautifully plucked eyebrows. ‘Greek traders?’ he asked us. For simplicity’s sake, we nodded. ‘Fine. Ahem. Today, goat and sheep prices are stable, but olive oil has gone up. It’s now two Greek obols for an amphora of olive oil sealed with pine resin. The mayor of the city has decreed a freeze on the price of bread, any baker charging more than —’

  ‘Excuse me.’ It was Phaleria. ‘Could you skip to the part about pewter? I want to know how much that is trading for this week.’

  ‘Fine, fine.’ The little man shuffled his scroll, looking for pewter. ‘Aha, here it is. Pewter is trading at eight ingots of pewter for one of bronze, seven ingots of pewter for one half of silver, and a Greek obol is stable at six for a drachma, which, as everyone knows, is quite a handful.’ The newscaster stopped and chuckled at his own joke, then cleared his throat again. ‘In the local news, someone broke into the wine cellar at the —’

  ‘Pardon me, but could you omit the local news? Unless it’s vitally important,’ said Alexander, leaning forward. ‘What news have you from Carthage? Or from Greece, or Alexandria?’

  The man huffed in annoyance and shuffled down his scroll some more, looking for the international news. ‘First, from Greece …’ He paused to see if we were going to interrupt again, but we stared up at him, polite interest on our faces. ‘Aristotle is dead —’

  ‘The monkey was right,’ interrupted Alexander, ‘Remember?’ he grabbed my arm. ‘The monkey told me — ’

  ‘Excuse me!’ The man bent over and stared at us. ‘What do you mean, ‘the monkey told you?’ When did you hear that?’

  ‘He died nearly three months ago, I heard it from …’ Alexander’s voice trailed off, and he frowned. ‘“A monkey told me” doesn’t sound right, does it?’ he whispered to me.

  ‘Now you know what I feel like most of the time,’ I whispered back.

  ‘But, but …’ The news speaker was at loss for words. ‘I only just received that news. It just arrived.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Plexis, stepping forward. ‘I haven’t heard yet. When did it happen? How? You could have told me,’ he said to Alexander. He sounded angry.

  Demos tapped Alexander on the shoulder. ‘Was it that monkey who could write? The one that told my fortune?’

  Plexis gaped at Demos, then at Alexander. ‘A monkey who could write told you Aristotle died?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll tell you about it later,’ said Alexander.

  ‘No! I mean, please, could you tell him now? I’d kind of like to hear about that too, if you don’t mind,’ said the newsman.

  ‘Just get on with the news,’ said Alexander, folding his arms across his chest.

  The newscaster looked undecided, then shrugged and frowned at his scroll. ‘So much for the big news of the day,’ he muttered. ‘Now, let’s see. More about Greece. The war between Cassander and Olympias still rages, although it is mostly confined to the north of Macedonia. The Athenians have refused to participate, sending no soldiers to either side. The Spartans have sided with Cassander. For now, Antipatros still rules Greece, but swears he’ll kill Olympias himself to avenge his youngest son, Iollas.’

  ‘You can stop with the Greek news,’ said Alexander, looking depressed. Iollas had been his cupbearer, and he’d
been fond of the young lad.

  ‘Fine, fine.’ The man shook his head and muttered, ‘Do they want the news or not? Ahem.So, let’s get the scoop on Carthage, shall we? You heard about the attack on the Greek trading post of Tartessos? Yes? So, you know all the news about Carthage. The king of Tartessos was killed, by the way, and a noble from Carthage has taken his place. There is to be an important ceremony in Carthage to thank the gods in three weeks, at the rising of the new moon.

  ‘Now for Alexandria near Egypt. Ptolemy Lagos has officially declared himself a god, so he is considered by everyone the official ruler of Egypt. We all bow down to him.’ The man broke off and sketched a quick bow. ‘And, for the very latest news from that kingdom, Ptolemy's son, also called Ptolemy, has been officially betrothed to the fair Cleopatra, the daughter of the late Alexander, King of All the World. Hey! What happened to her?’ he cried, pointing with his scroll.

  Everyone looked at the ground where I’d collapsed. My knees had simply given out at the mention of my daughter, Cleopatra.

  It was not a faint, it was just the shock. The newscaster hopped off his pedestal, fanned me with a piece of papyrus, and said, ‘I’ve never had that reaction before, amazing.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, sitting up and clutching Alexander around the neck with my good hand. ‘I should have expected that, Ptolemy is nothing if not perfectly ruthless and ambitious. Damn him. Now I’ll have to hurry back to Memphis, and I did so want to see Pompeii before the volcano annihilates it.’ The shock was making me babble, I think.

  ‘That won’t happen for another three centuries,’ said Paul, proud to show off his ‘future’ lessons.

  The newscaster stopped fanning me and stared, his mouth hanging open. ‘Well, I’ll be,’ he said. ‘An oracle. I should have known.’

  ‘I’m not really an oracle,’ I said. I looked up at Alexander and sighed. ‘I suppose that piece of information about Cleopatra doesn’t bother you?’