Furies

by D. L. Johnstone

  “How would you know what I think?”

  “I know what I would think were I in your place. I give you my oath, Aculeo, on all I hold dear, I never took part in these terrible events. I know only what others spoke of to me.”

  “Did you know women were murdered?” Aculeo demanded. “Did you know they were sacrificed like goats to the Gods?”

  “I suspected as much, but you have to understand …”

  “Understand? Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “But don’t you see?” Zeanthes pleaded. “I tried to help you to discover the truth for yourself. When we talked at Ralla’s symposium that night, I introduced you to them all.”

  Aculeo glowered at the other man, incredulous. “How many women were murdered?”

  “I don’t really know,” the sophist said weakly.

  “You don’t know, or you don’t care?”

  “Oh, Aculeo, I care more than you can possibly imagine,” Zeanthes said. He looked like a feeble old man all of a sudden, shoulders bowed, eyes clouded with fear. “My dear, dear friend, how can I make you believe me?”

  “Who’s at the centre of this?”

  “I’m not certain.”

  “Then who do you fucking suspect?”

  “Ralla,” Zeanthes said. It was practically a whisper, but the name was like a roar in Aculeo’s ears.

  “Who else?”

  “Gurculio when he was alive. And Asinius Camillus. And Avilius Balbus.”

  “When did it start?”

  The sophist was quiet for a moment, looking meditatively towards the Museion buildings. “Six months ago perhaps.”

  “They’ve been murdering girls for the past six months, and you said nothing?” Aculeo demanded, his fury barely in check. “You did nothing?”

  “I couldn’t be certain. It was all just talk.”

  “Of course, all you do is talk! What are the lives of a few women worth to you compared to your beloved patronage, another bowl of wine and an evening of fucking talk!”

  “I told you what I could,” Zeanthes cried fervently, clutching at Aculeo’s tunic. “I taught you about Persephone, of the pomegranates, of Dionysos. I guided you, helped reveal the true nature of the killer.”

  “What help was that to the girls who were murdered while you spun your tales, you old fool?”

  “I was afraid.”

  “I thought as much.”

  “No, don’t misunderstand me,” Zeanthes wept, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I wasn’t afraid for myself, but for you, Aculeo. For Calisto. For the love you share with one another. After all you’ve been through, with your wife and son …”

  “Don’t dare speak of them to me!”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just that I didn’t want to see you come to ruin out of misplaced pride.” Zeanthes covered his face with his trembling hands. “Oh why did you have to return? Why didn’t you just flee the city?”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”

  “What good would that have done? A simple sophist and a bankrupt Roman merchant against these powerful men? If I’d spoken out, they would have murdered us both, and then who would stop them?”

  “So you said nothing in order to stop them?”

  “I hoped to convince them to change their ways through discourse,” Zeanthes said desperately, tears running down his cheeks.

  “More talk. Yet instead of saving them, more girls were murdered.”

  “I know,” the sophist said, weeping now. “I know, you’re right. Oh what have I done?”

  “When’s the next symposium?” Aculeo asked.

  “Tonight, at Ralla’s villa.”

  “Calisto’s life is in danger.”

  “Oh surely not. I know he cares deeply for her!”

  “That didn’t stop him from murdering the others, did it?”

  “I can only pray you’re wrong. Ralla, he’s far more powerful than you might realize.”

  “He’s just a man, like you and me,” Aculeo said. “He thinks he’s something more, and others believe him. So he murders, steals, attempts to crush the rest of us. And cowards like you stand idly by as he tries to take from us everything that’s meaningful in this world. But in the end, he’s only a flesh and blood.” With that, Aculeo stood up and walked away.

  Zeanthes watched him leave, then simply sat there, quiet for a moment, his eyes closed. The only sounds were the song of birds in the fruit trees of the Museion orchards and the distant drums of the festival.

  Aculeo could see the gleaming white shoreline of the Harbour of Kiobotos where a great number of cows, goats and donkeys had been gathered and crowned with garlands, for the festival, all the beasts of burden were celebrated for the contributions their ancestors had made carrying the loads to build the city. Thin streams of smoke threaded like white ribbons into the blue sky overhead, as even ordinary citizens were encouraged to make a sacrifice to the health and salvation of the divine Caesar. They did so in front of their houses, on rooftops and in the street along which the litter passed, sacrificing whatever they could afford, a goat, a duck, or a handful of grain.

  Vendors had parked their wagons at the side of the street, having been given special dispensation on festival day to do so, and the air was rich with the smell of spiced meats, roasted beans, bread baked with honey, and chilled black wine. The streets were alive with the sound of drums and flutes and plucking lyres as entertainers wove through the crowds, dancing and singing as they went. One wagon was festooned with linen flags and banners that snapped in the breeze, another stacked with portraits of Caesar Tiberius and Augustus on clay plaques, bracelets and rolls of papyrus, another selling wind chimes, their hollow songs like half-remembered dreams.

  Aculeo watched the oarsmen sweep their long oars through the slate blue waters in steady, practised rhythm, and the great barge, a hundred cubits in length, with gilt prows and scarlet awnings stretched across its teakwood decks, swept to the front of the procession. The short journey across the bay from the palace past the Caesareum to the Harbour of Kiobotos had begun, thus formally initiating the Festival of the Founders, which had been celebrated every year in the city since its founding over three centuries before.

  The buildings and houses were all freshly whitewashed for the festival, their red clay roofs pretty as pebbles on the beach against the bright blue sky. The street leading up to the Soma, where the dedication would be made, was hung with yellow and green awnings which flapped gently in the sweet morning breeze off the sea. The Prefect’s barge slowed to a crawl as it approached the pier where the priests and worshippers had gathered, waiting for them to disembark. The crowds cheered as the barge pulled alongside the pier, the sailors threw long, stout jute ropes to tie it off and an ornate ramp was lowered to the deck.

  Aculeo watched as the wealthy citizens and their families emerged from their litters into the sunlight and joined the procession, walking the rest of the way like common folk. He recalled the times he and Titiana along with Corvinus with his family had walked alongside them, so far removed from this time and place, another lifetime. Attendance of such families in the procession was considered both an honour and an expectation. It could be his only chance to get to the man before the symposium that evening.

  And there he saw a balding, middle-aged man emerge from a gaudy-looking litter, his watery brown eyes blinking in the bright sunshine. Lucius Albius Ralla. He was followed by his family, a shrewish, dark-haired woman and a girl of perhaps eight years, a pair of muscular slaves a few steps behind them. Soldiers held back the masses as the procession made its way along the Street of the Soma, which had been laid with fresh-cut palm fronds. Priests robed in white led the procession, followed by priestesses bearing sacred objects for the festival – the Basket-Bearer, the Prize-Bearer, the Crown-Bearer and the Light-Bearer. The streets were filled with the sound of music, flutes, lyres and drums, as the procession slowly moved towards the golden dome. The many statues of the Caesars that lined the street were all adorne
d with double-horned cornucopias, flowing with fragrant white flowers, in honor of the Festival.

  The procession finally made its way up to the Soma where the tombs of the Ptolemies were housed. At the front entrance stood a towering statue of Alexander the Great himself, so young and handsome, a sword in one hand, a set of scrolls in the other. A grand pavilion built of beams of fragrant wood had been constructed for the sacrifice, hung with Phoenician curtains, purple rugs, military cloaks and rich tapestries embroidered with mythological scenes. Great, twisted logs of dried olive-wood had been piled high at Alexander’s feet while a pair of steers with ivory white hides and frightened pinkish eyes stood to the side, uncertain why they should have been brought to this place.

  Aculeo had a good view of Ralla and his family standing near the Prefect Vitrasius Pollio, not fifty cubits away, watching the prayers being given. The priests laid a burning branch on the olive-wood, which quickly snapped and crackled with fire. A grey-bearded pontiff dressed in magnificent gold and murex-purple robes led the prayer, a very long, tedious honorific to the Founders, the Caesars and virtually every god in the Roman and, for good measure, the Egyptian panoply as well. At the end of the prayer, the pontiff cast a handful of barley meal onto the now blazing fire, making it pop and hiss. The white-robed priests then led the suspicious steers forward. The pontiff gave a signal, and a tall, powerful looking priest stepped back from the fray, then swung a gleaming bronze axe into the first steer’s broad neck, slicing through its thick muscles and ropey white sinews. It dropped almost instantly, falling prone on both its horns.

  The second steer was dragged forward, lowing in fear, scraping its hooves against the dusty ground, trying to escape. The priest swung his axe again and that steer too fell to the ground. The priests quickly cut the steers’ throats and hot blood gushed from the animals’ wounds, splashed upon the altar floor, washed around the worshippers’ feet, the ripe, heady stench of death filling the air. Some drops of blood had splashed on Ralla’s daughter’s pretty white robes – she let out a cry, a high pitched wail that echoed through the temple. Ralla gave the child a look of irritation and whispered something to his wife, who nodded obediently and led her away, escorted by one of their slaves. The priests flayed the steers’ hides, then cut out the sacred thigh bones, covered them with thick pink-white slabs of sundered fat and laid them spattering on the fire.

  Aculeo glanced up at the statue of Alexander, his serene marble face wreathed in the smoke of sacrifice, which climbed in good omen in a dark spiralling column to the Soma’s vaulted ceiling. The ceiling was adorned with the carved images of the Caesars and the ancient kings.

  He almost missed seeing Ralla and his remaining slave head out of the pavilion, slipping past the other worshippers and down the broad marble steps. He crossed the Street of the Soma and turned down a side street. Aculeo crossed the street and followed as close as he could behind the men, afraid he might lose them as they weaved their way through the teeming multitudes. They turned down another street just ahead. Someone cried out, a pair of wagons bumped across the cobbled street, blocking Aculeo’s path. A gaggle of merchants loading fresh goods from their wagons into their stalls, laughing, yawning, scratching at themselves. Aculeo shoved his way past them, ignored their cries of protest, and turned down the street. No sign of Ralla or the bodyguard. Where did he go? He turned down another side street up ahead – still nothing. They were gone.

  There were a number of taverns and shops lining the street, they could have stepped into any one of them. Damn it, Aculeo thought, looking about, where could they have gone? He turned back and tried another side street where he spotted the banker deep in conversation with another man beneath a covered walkway. The slave glanced over at Aculeo, then looked away, unconcerned. Ralla had his back turned. The crowd had thinned to only a handful of people.

  Aculeo felt his heart pound in his chest as he drew his knife, the blade tucked back against the flat of his wrist, and moved closer to the man, only ten cubits away now. How shall I do it? he wondered, his knees like water. Move in from behind, take him by the throat, end it fast before his slave can act, then run.

  This is madness, he thought. I’m no killer, am I?

  Yes, yes I can be, I must be if the alternative’s too much to bear.

  And if I succeed, what then? This street leads the wrong way, down to the harbour. I’ll need to double back then, head towards the Agora, try to lose any pursuers there. His heart was in his throat now, his breathing shallow, harsh, his hands trembling as sweat trickled down his back. Only a few steps away now.

  He could smell the man’s oiled hair scented with dense, expensive perfume. He could see the soft roll of pale skin on the back of his neck, the collar of his fine tunic dark with sweat. Aculeo lifted the knife, his other hand ready to grab the hair on the back of the man’s head, to pull it back, expose the throat, then cut. He took a deep, shaky breath and started to move in.

  The sound of a child’s laughter. A boy no more than three years old emerged from one of the shops with his nursemaid. Aculeo hesitated as he locked eyes with the child who smiled at him, a beautiful, innocent smile ...

  Things seemed to move too slowly after that. Aculeo stayed his hand, turned awkwardly away, slipping on the paving stones, dropping his knife. Someone let out a warning cry and Ralla looked up, eyes lit with fear. The banker snatched the boy from the nursemaid’s arms and fell back against the wall of a shop, shielding himself with the now wailing child.

  Aculeo tried to escape but someone grabbed his tunic, holding him back. He felt a sudden electric jolt in his side, his mouth filling with blood as the pain radiated through him like a brushfire. He saw the slave sweep the knife towards him for a second strike and managed to block it just in time, then punched him in the throat. The slave dropped his weapon and fell to his knees, gasping for breath. Ralla scuttled to safety into an oblivious group of tourists just emerged from the shops, still clutching the bawling child in his arms.

  Aculeo staggered away, hand to his side, his tunic slick with blood, trying to breathe, a wet sucking sound emanating from his chest. He made it out into the main street, fell into the anonymous evening crowds around the Agora. He stumbled off into the night, everything spinning around, knowing he’d just lost the only chance he’d get.

  Epiphaneus grimaced as he limped towards the rail of the Pharos balustrade, looking down upon the city. Dusk was falling, visitors had thinned to a few scattered tourists. The sophist pulled his himation tight around his round, sloping shoulders. “A cold, lonely place to meet, Zeanthes.”

  “Apologies, my dear friend,” Zeanthes said. “You told me you wanted to meet somewhere private away from the Museion. I should have been more respectful of your age.”

  “I’m but three years older than you,” Epiphaneus snapped. “It’s not frailty on my part – it’s this wretched place. There’s nothing to cut the sea wind.”

  Zeanthes looked down at the waves that crashed across the island’s white sands, the winds off the sea blowing stray hairs across his face. “I do enjoy spending time up here. It gives one a unique perspective of the city and the world, as the gods must look upon such things.”

  Epiphaneus snorted. “You’re just a man, though, standing with another man at the end of the day upon a tower still other men have built.”

  “Yet here we can bear witness to what great things the gods have inspired us to dream, create, achieve.”

  “The gods are for children and fools.”

  Zeanthes put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You haven’t been yourself of late, Epiphaneus. What ails you?”

  The sophist said nothing for a while, just gripped the rail, looking down at the grey-white tower wall to the rugged shore far below. “I came here some years ago to conduct an experiment. I took two projectiles of similar dimensions but of different weights, and dropped them from this very balustrade at precisely the same time. I had a slave stand below, measuring the time and distance they fell fr
om the starting point. And what do you think happened?”

  “Tell me.”

  “They reached the earth at exactly the same time, exactly the same distance from the starting point. This force that draws us to the earth is fundamentally the same for all things. All bodies might thus be connected. The sun is drawn to the earth as the earth is to the sun. We in turn are drawn to the earth, hence we do not fall from its face, and we are similarly drawn to one another, collecting in cities where we bridge our relationships with our fellow man.”

  “So the world, the cosmos, even our perception of reality itself are purely mathematical?” Zeanthes asked.

  “As Pythagoras taught us, yes.”

  “Still, you must also accept that none of the things that are known by us could have come into being without the handiwork of the divine artisans.”

  “I accept nothing of the sort. Our lack of understanding of our own existence is hardly proof of existence of higher powers.”

  “Nor is our inability to see these higher powers any proof of their non-existence.”

  “Rubbish. We’ve nothing else to measure but our own reality.”

  “But what most men interpret as reality, our day-to-day lives, are just poor reflections, imperfect emanations from our eternal souls.”

  “If reality is nothing, then what is death?” Epiphaneus demanded, scowling at the other sophist from beneath his bushy white eyebrows.

  “Merely a transmigration, a phase,” Zeanthes replied. “Human souls are divine and immortal but they are doomed to follow a grievous circle of successive lives. Between our lives, a void exists, which separates and distinguishes our natures as do the spaces between numbers.”

  “More rubbish,” Epiphaneus said irritably. “You speak of Anaximander’s theory of metempsychosis. A minor work, unworthy of our consideration.”