Cleopatra's Promise

by Talbot Mundy

  “And the queen?”

  “Said nothing.”

  “Aye. She is good at saying nothing. Did she say it in many words?”

  “I know not. My informant told me that throughout all the speech-making she reclined on her divan and played with a Persian kitten, as if the world might go to wrack and ruin for all she cared. And now she is on Pleasure Island, with her child and her women. They say that Cassius’ envoys have returned to Syria empty-handed, except for some trashy presents. And her barge lies waiting at the royal boat wharf—”

  “And—?”

  “One of the royal barge slaves was in here asking for you.”

  “When?”

  “He left not ten minutes ago. He pretended to be needing a new brass tholepin. But he found fault with what we offered. And he asked what tholepins you use. Thus, one word leading to another, he conversed about your trireme, and then wondered where you are. He said that the commander of the royal barge would esteem your advice on certain matters, and that it would be well for us to let the barge-commander know if you should show up.”

  “That is not all, Nathan. There is something else on your mind. What is it ?”

  “Lord Tros, as you know, I am no alarmist. But there have been others asking for you, two freedmen, clients of a man named Aristobolus. They also wanted news of you if you should turn up.”

  “Any reason?”

  “Yes. They lied. They declared they were clients of Hippias the Rhodian, who is very wealthy and is said to stand high in the queen’s favor. But I knew them. The rogues forgot that it was I who sold them, thirteen years ago, when Rabirius the Roman money-lender ruined their former master. They said Hippias wishes to do you a favor, but without attracting public notice. They said Hippias’ boat awaits you in the reeds, down near the public bath-house, half a furlong westward. They said, if you will take Hippias’ boat, it will convey you to him and he will accompany you into the queen’s presence, where he will have much to say in your behalf.”

  “And—?”

  “I happen to know that Hippias is at Dendera, visiting the estate from which he draws his income!”

  “And—?”

  “They bade me warn you to come alone.”

  Tros laughed. “Nathan, I prefer the queen’s trap to that other! Sell me a change of clothing. I am filthy from the dust of these streets.”

  “Lord Tros, why risk your life in either trap? It is safer in Rome than in Alexandria! Leave your trireme in Esias’ keeping. There is another corn fleet making ready. We can smuggle you and a few of your men to Puteoli. You have a big credit with us. We can give you drafts on our office in Rome, and I will give you a list of the names of senators who can be bribed to do anything, to forget everything, and to appoint the most improbable men to the most important positions. They will vote you Roman citizenship. They will make you a Roman admiral. Then remember your friends!”

  “Bring me new clothing, Nathan. I will visit the source of all this mystery. Trick me up like an Alexandrine exquisite.”

  “But, Lord Tros—”

  “And while you get the clothing, send in my man Conops.”

  Nathan gloomed out to do Tros’ bidding and presently Conops clanked into the office. He was never quite certain how to treat these powerful but sometimes timid and almost always deferential Jews, whom Tros so confidently trusted.

  He was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, his manner midway between impudence and respect for prodigious wealth, but another mood shone in his eye when he saw through the window the slave-girls learning Greek, and about a dozen others, in a comer of the compound, learning to sing Greek songs and to dance suggestive illustrations of the theme.

  “Drinking already, eh? Never mind those women. Stand with your back to the window. Now then: do you know of a place, half a furlong to westward, near the public bath-house, where a boat might make an unseen landing in the reeds?”

  “Aye, master. Where the south wind drives the floating islands inshore. It is the place where the runaway slaves hide until nightfall and as often as not get snapped up by crocodiles.”

  “March your men hither and back, and report to me whether a boat lies hidden. If any one questions you, say where I am. You may say I am here in conference. You may say I am going alone to the royal barge presently. You may say you expect to be drunk tonight, and if they give you some largess for your wine and women, you may buy one small jar of wine, eleven fishing-lines and hooks, and enough bait for a few hours’ fishing.

  “Then, after you have reported to me, watch; and if you see them leave the boat, you may send eight of your men to seize it, taking the wine and fish-lines with them. You and the two remaining men will guard me as far as the royal boat wharf.

  “When I am safe on the royal barge, you may make haste to the other boat —pull off your armor, all of you—row out into the lake, follow the royal barge as closely as you dare, drop anchor as near as you dare to the royal island, and remain there fishing until you see me return on the royal barge, or until I signal for you.

  “Better take along some food as well as wine; it may be dark before I need you. And remember: don’t be conspicuous. Try to look like fishermen, or at least like a party of Alexandrine tradesmen keeping holiday. Have you understood me?”

  “Aye, aye, master.”

  “Then do it.”

  THERE was a good deal of fuss about clothing. Nothing but the best would do for Tros, and by the time Nathan’s slaves had bathed him and arrayed him in linen good enough for the queen herself, and the expert slave-girls had arranged a chaplet in his hair, Tros looked hardly like the same man.

  He looked, if anything, more powerful because the almost transparent linen betrayed the bulge of his muscles; but he looked like a courtier, not a fighting man; he looked too elegant to care for anything but luxuries, wine, women and song. Conops, breathless from his errand, stood and gawked at him.

  “Well?”

  “Boat, yes. That fellow Aristobolus and four freedmen. Knives. Aristobolus gave me money, as you said he might. He said his name is Hippias, and he asked after your health, so I told him what you said I was to tell him, and he looked as savage as a man whose drink’s been spilled. So I came back, and I’ve bought the wine and bread and eggs and smoked fish, and some olive oil and lettuce, and a couple of melons. Master, half a jar’s an awful little for eleven men. and ten of 'em just received freedom, and not a drink since Cyprus.”

  “Very well, make it a jar.”

  “There’s no more money.”

  “Give them a full jar. Nathan. Mind you, if you get as drunk as you did in Cyprus I’ll reduce you to the lower oar-bench. You’re to divide the wine equally, drink for drink. That is an order. Have you understood it?”

  'Aye, aye, master. But I hadn’t finished telling. We weren’t back here before those four freedmen hit our wake and came strolling along like loafers with nothing better to do. Eastward of here, and this side of the royal boat wharf, there’s a wine-garden set in a grove of myrtles and oleanders. That’s where they are. and not drinking either —lurking— up to no good.”

  “Aristobolus still in the boat?”

  “Yes, master. That’s to say, unless he slipped away without us seeing him. I’d be willing to wager my share of the drinks he’s there yet.”

  “Then he likely is there? Send your eight men to seize the boat. They needn’t be too gentle with Aristobolus, but they’re not to kill him if they can help it. Let them throw him in the bottom of the boat and tie and gag him. They may as well take the provisions with them. You and your other two, follow me, and follow closely.”

  Aye, aye, master. Are we to have Aristobolus’ company in the boat all afternoon?”

  “Yes, you may un-gag him when you’re out on the lake. Use your own judgment about pretending to agree to any treachery he may suggest. Memorize his words— his exact words.”

  “Aye, aye master.”

  Eight men. trusted for the first time with a danger
ous task without Conops’ superintending eye, and looking innocent enough, in spite of armor, with their load of wine and provisions, tramped away eastward down the road between the buildings and the shore. Tros, with his sword beneath his left arm, hidden by an apparently carelessly draped himation, strolled westward, appearing to enjoy the freshness of the early afternoon breeze. Conops followed him. Jeshua and Aroun trudged at Conops’ heels.

  There was a considerable crowd along the road to eastward. Many of them were slaves, permitted a day’s idleness on account of the festival; but there were scores of gaily dressed and well-behaved families, enjoying the view or hiring row-boats, or strolling from one public garden, or one wine-booth to another. And there was a considerable number of chariots being driven at the usual reckless speed by gallants not yet drunk enough to kill deliberately but with enough wine in their heads to enjoy scattering the crowd like scared poultry.

  There was a disturbance of that kind as Tros drew abreast of the myrtle and oleander thicket. Two racing chariots swerved around the western corner of the thicket and headed eastward, giving Tros their dust and scattering a screaming score of men and women.

  Conops snarled a warning. “They’re on us! Draw, you chosen people!”

  Tros’ sword licked out like the flash of lightning. His himation danced on his left arm. Conops leaped. He plunged his knife into a man’s throat. The Jews buried their swords in the bellies of two other men. Tros slew the fourth, driving the point through his heart with such force that Conops had to stand on the man’s body in order to wrench the sword out.

  It was all over in almost a second, like a flurry of wind in a copse, or the swoop of a hawk on a dove-cote. A few of the wine-garden’s customers peered through the thicket, but no crowd formed; on the contrary, those in the street who had seen what happened scurried out of sight to avoid trouble.

  It was nothing very unusual that a man should be set upon by his enemy’s freedmen; drunken brawls and unpaid debts, the volatile affections of a woman, or even a topical song was enough to start a street fight. The municipal slaves would remove the bodies, unless the dead men’s friends first did it.

  Meanwhile, fishermen hurried ashore to be first to steal clothing, and money, and finger-rings, on the pretext of laying the bodies beside the road; they even demanded pay for doing that from passers-by, because Alexandrines disliked to see blood on a glorious May afternoon.

  They were not like Romans. They could always be persuaded to pay to protect their squeamishness. By the time Tros had cleaned his sword with sand and water, and Conops had wiped it dry, the incident was in a fair way to being forgotten.

  Tros dismissed Conops and the two Jews as soon as they had cleaned their weapons.

  “That gale’s done with. Make haste now and get the boat off-shore. I’ll be safe between here and the queen’s barge.”

  “Aye, aye, master.”

  CHAPTER IV

  “IT IS YOUR THRONE!”

  THE approach to the royal boat wharf through the Gate of the Sun— a gate that no longer existed, because the wall had been demolished at that point to make room for imported trees— was almost the only Egyptian touch in the whole city, with its guardian sphynxes and statues stolen from ancient Nile-bank temples.

  The marble boat-shed was of Egyptian design and even the attending slaves were garbed in the ancient Egyptian head-dress. It was a sort of symbolical gateway. Here one entered into Egypt. Today, Greece— Europe, ceased. Yesterday, mystery, melancholy and the fabled land of Khem began.

  Even the boats on Mareotis were of the ancient Egyptian pattern. Many of the luxurious villas and pavilions on the islands were designed to suggest the Egyptian spirit, in curious contrast to the ultra-modern Greek design of Alexandria.

  There were scores of sentries, to keep the holiday-making crowd at a respectful distance from the royal boat wharf. But nobody challenged Tros. He was not saluted, but he was not questioned. He enjoyed a sensation of being seen, and yet intentionally unseen, as if he were expected, even welcome, and yet unmentionable.

  He decided to test the situation and approached a lieutenant of the guard, who yawned and peacocked on the terrace in front of the Egyptian arch at the landward end of the marble jetty.

  “Promoted I see, Tysander. I congratulate you. Have I blood on my clothing?”

  The officer examined him from head to foot.

  “No. But I saw that little entertainment. Good sword!”

  Six short weeks ago, Tysander would have called him by name, with simulated if not actual respect.

  “I thank you, Tysander.”

  “Better leave your sword here.”

  “My man has it.”

  Tros threw back his himation in proof that he was unarmed. The lieutenant nodded and Tros strolled through the arch, not exactly expecting to be daggered on the far side but, in his mind’s eye, measuring three jumps from the arch to the water. However, the slaves who stood with their backs to the archlike statues took no notice of him.

  The gilded barge lay moored against the jetty with its sixteen rowers in their places; they tossed oars as Tros strolled through the arch. There was no doubt they were waiting for him. The royal barge-commander stood on the jetty actually smiling, looking a bit Bacchanalian because his chaplet was awry, but spic and span in Cleopatra’s new emerald-and-orange uniform. She had a great gift for designing uniforms that made a man look picturesque but subtly menial.

  “Have you a dagger on you?” he asked. “May I feel?”

  Again no mention of Tros’ name. An air of almost, but not quite cordiality. The best seat on the barge, in the stern, behind the queen’s awninged bridge-deck. No salute from the rowers, but, on the other hand, respectful service from the barge slaves, who blew the dust from Tros’ sandals and sponged and wiped his legs.

  No command. Every one knew what to do. The gaudily dressed sailors cast off and the barge went at top speed toward Pleasure Island, with the tubas blowing to make fishermen and holiday boating-parties scoot out of the way. No conversation, not even between the barge-commander and his lieutenant.

  There was nothing to interfere with Tros’ interest in the passing scene, and it was not long before he had picked out the gaily painted pleasure boat in which Conops and the ten Jews were pretending to be out for an afternoon’s amusement.

  Eight of the Jews were rowing, and like all strong men untrained to that difficult art they were making heavy weather of it; they could easily pass for a boat-load of drunken roisterers, perhaps in a stolen boat, but surely not armed and dangerous.

  Pleasure Island loomed, took form, revealed itself in a reedy mirage, two or three miles beyond the staked deep-water channel for the laden barges from the Nile. It provided absolute privacy. Even its flower-carpeted banks were invisible until the barge had gone beyond it, and turned, and approached from the southward, the thump of the oars alarming myriads of water-fowl that took wing from the reeds and filled the air with weird music.

  Then the first sight was of naked Greek girls, some bathing and others playing games against a background of marbled terraces and columned pavilions. There was not a man in sight, not even a eunuch, except for a guard-boat half hidden in a water-lane between the reeds.

  There were probably several guard-boats, but only one was visible. The attendants on the boat-jetty were Egyptian slave-girls, dog-eyed, barebreasted. Their white teeth flashed in sensuous smiles. Their dark skins were like shadows against the sunlit marble.

  They made the boat fast. No one spoke to Tros. As he walked up the marble path, between flowers, the sound of girls’ laughter didn’t cease for an instant. Even when the path skirted one end of the terrace on which the naked girls were playing, and he was in full view, no one stared at him. He knew at least half of those girls— knew their fathers and mothers; they were the cream of the Alexandrine aristocracy; he had been offered his pick of them, dozens of times, by a court chamberlain who would have been delighted to ally him by marriage with the ascen
dant political faction. But he might have been invisible for all the notice they took.

  The first greeting he received, at the top of the steps, on the terrace in front of the pavilion door, was from the Lady Charmion, looking like one of the Fates with her needle and thread and her vinegary air of prim chastity in classically draped white Chinese silk. She looked up from her sewing to answer his bow.

  “The queen expects you. You may go straight in. The child Caesarion has just been punished for saying he loves you.”

  “Perhaps he does,” Tros answered. “Was it you who had him punished?”

  “Yes!” She almost spat the word. “Go in and try to redeem yourself! You will need the full resources of your Samothracian guile, I can assure you!”

  “I will keep my guile,” he answered, bowing like a courtier, “for gilding my esteem, where tart ingratitude occasionally chafes it thin!”

  He loved to annoy her. Three ladies-in-waiting, who were doing embroidery-work with Charmion, and pretending to like it, giggled. Tros nodded to them and entered the pavilion, down a corridor where seven eunuchs sat on a gilded bench, whispering and smirking like priests in a vestry.

  One of them opened a door, and then for the first time some one called Tros by name. The child Caesarion, a brat hardly able to toddle, but precocious, and looking already like a miniature copy of Julius Caesar, ran through the doorway and fell at his feet, seizing his legs and calling him “Twos of Sam-othwakee.” There was at any rate someone pleased to see him.

  But the child was swept up by a protesting nurse and borne off, yelling for his hero. Then a golden voice, that had no equal, anywhere:

  “You may come in.”

  THE EUNUCH closed the door behind him and he was alone with the queen. She was in one of her strangely magnetic moods that nobody ever knew how to divine—greenish eyes, brooding — rather sensuous lips, smiling— looking smaller than ever, because she was seated in a huge chair facing the view through the open window.