The spy laughed. “Philip wasn’t harmed. He’s quite comfortable, traveling under guard in Ptolemy’s retinue. Who knows what important bits of information he may have to give us, in the coming days. But he already told us about you.”
“What could he possibly have told you? I never met Philip before that day.”
“Exactly—and that’s precisely what I find so intriguing, because Philip says that he saw you on Pompey’s galley just before the so-called Great One came ashore, and you appeared to be on quite close terms with Pompey’s wife. Philip says you must be one of Pompey’s veterans from the old days—and yet Philip didn’t know you, and Philip knew everyone with whom his master associated. How could that be, unless you were one of Pompey’s—how shall I say it?—secret associates. An agent, traveling incognito. A spy!”
“Ridiculous!” I said, even though the presumption was perfectly logical. I was treading a dagger’s edge, trying to decide how much of the truth to tell them. Pompey’s spy I certainly was not, but in fact I had worked for Pompey more than once in the past, digging up secrets. How good was the spy’s intelligence? Would he recognize the name of Gordianus? Even if he didn’t, someone else in King Ptolemy’s cadre of spies very likely might have heard of me. If I lied and told the man I didn’t know Pompey, he might discover the truth and presume I was hiding some more damaging fact. If I told too much of the truth, he might make his own false assumptions. I shook my head at the irony: Pompey had wanted me dead, and in death he might yet achieve that purpose, condemning me by association.
“My name is Gordianus,” I said. The spy showed no reaction to the name. “I’m a Roman, yes. But my wife was born here in Egypt; we met in Alexandria, many years ago. In recent months she fell ill. She came to believe that only a voyage back to Egypt, to bathe in the Nile, could save her. That’s why we came here, traveling on a Greek merchant ship. The lighthouse at Pharos was in sight when a storm blew us to the east. That’s how I fell in with Pompey. Yes, I knew him, from years gone by, but I certainly wasn’t his spy. When he was killed and his fleet set sail, in the confusion I fell overboard. I was lucky to reach the shore alive. Philip asked me to help him build Pompey’s funeral pyre. I could hardly refuse.”
“And your party? How did they happen to come ashore?” “The Greek captain was determined to be rid of them, for bringing him bad luck. As soon as we parted with Philip, we headed here, to find this spot by the Nile. There’s a temple in that glade, with a priestess who serves Osiris. My wife consulted her yesterday. She went to bathe in the river, alone. She didn’t come back.” I stared steadily at the spy, my vision blurred by tears.
The man was having none of it. “So, you admit to having been in Egypt before! No doubt that’s why you were selected for this mission, because you already know the lay of the land.”
“What mission? This is absurd! I haven’t set foot in Egypt in over thirty years—”
“So you say. Perhaps your wife, when we find her, will tell a different tale. The temple you speak of has been abandoned for years. The old woman who haunts the place is no priestess; she’s some sort of half-mad witch.”
The officer interrupted. “This is getting us nowhere. The main body of the army isn’t far behind us. I need to push forward with the advance guard. I’ll leave behind enough men to secure these prisoners, and you can hand them over to Captain Achillas when he comes through.”
“And the woman? What if we fail to find her?”
The officer looked at me for a long moment. The pressure of his spear against me eased. “If you ask me,” he said, “I think the Roman is telling the truth, about the woman anyway. But what would I know? I’m just a soldier. I don’t have the devious mind of a spy.”
He stepped back and lowered his spear, poking the tip against the earth to remove the streaks of my blood. At his signal, soldiers came forward to bind my hands behind my back, as Rupa and the boys had already been bound.
“What about our wagon and mules?” I said. “Those will be confiscated,” said the spy, “along with that trunk you’ve been carting with you. I’m curious to see what’s inside.” He ordered soldiers to remove the trunk from the wagon.
“If you insist on sorting through our soiled clothing and my wife’s toiletries, may it bring you pleasure,” I said.
We were shackled together by our ankles and made to sit in the cart, the boys next to each other at the front, and Rupa and I on either side, opposite one another. The spy emptied the trunk onto the roadside and rummaged through the contents. He turned out to be no better than a common thief, pocketing the coins and the few items of value, such as a silver-and-ebony comb that Bethesda had insisted on bringing with her. He reached into the pouch of my tunic as well, and pulled out the alabaster vial.
“Ah, what’s this?” he said.
“A gift from a lady.”
“Perfume? Are Roman men scenting themselves like catamites these days?”
“Vials can contain things other than perfume,” I said.
He looked as me knowingly. “Poison, I’ll wager. Something spies often carry on their persons, in case they wish to make a fast, clean exit. Or were you plotting to use it on someone? On King Ptolemy himself, perhaps? Ha! Whatever’s inside, it’s a pretty little container,” he said, pocketing it along with the coins and the comb.
Soon, I began to hear, from the direction of Naucratis, the distant neighing of horses, shouted commands, the creaking of wagon wheels, the tattoo of military drums, and the tramp of many feet marching in unison. There are few sounds so distinctive, or so unnerving, as the approach of a great army. Birds take to the sky, a buzz throbs upon the air, and the earth itself trembles.
The spy gathered up the items of no use to him and stuffed them back into the trunk, then ordered soldiers to put the trunk back into the wagon. The boys yelped, drawing back their toes to avoid having them crushed, but it was Rupa, with his long legs, who was most inconvenienced.
From my cramped vantage point in the wagon—with my back to the road, facing Rupa opposite and the river beyond—I had to crane my neck to see the streaming pennants and plumed helmets of the approaching army. As they came nearer, the soldiers struck up a marching chant. The words were Egyptian, but hearing them repeated over and over, I was able eventually to make sense of them:
He came to knock on Ptolemy’s door,
But never set foot on Egypt’s shore.
While he was yet inside the boat,
Captain Achillas cut his throat.
So now he’s dead, The Roman’s dead,
As all will know
When they see his head!
Hurrah! Hurrah!
As all will know When they see the head
Of the so-called Great
Who now is dead!
So-called! So-called!
Like Alexander, he was not;
Pompey was cut, not the Gordian knot!
Hurrah! Hurrah!
This song is short, but the march is long,
And so again we sing the song:
Hurrah! Hurrah!
He came to knock on Ptolemy’s door,
But never set foot on Egypt’s shore. . . .
Guards remained posted around the wagon, but the spy headed off to meet the advancing troops, and I lost sight of him. The stamp of marching feet grew louder and louder. Iron rings bolted along the top rim of the wagon began to rattle and dance against the wood, so great was the vibration. I would have covered my ears, had my hands been free. I looked at the boys and saw fear in their eyes. Rupa squirmed nervously, his legs bunched up against the trunk. They all looked to me for reassurance, so I struggled to keep my face impassive, despite the thrill of panic I felt. Cranes shot skyward from rushes along the Nile, flapping their wings and emitting shrill cries. I watched their flight, envious.
The army reached us and went rumbling by. The chant was deafening:
Like Alexander, he was not;
Pompey was cut, not the Gordian knot!
/> On and on it went, as thousands of men marched by. Next came the clatter of hooves from mounted cavalry. After the cavalry came the wagons carrying weapons and provisions. Amid the rumble of wheels, I thought I heard the spy’s reedy voice nearby, conferring with someone. It seemed that a decision was reached, for the conversation ended, and a soldier mounted the wagon and drove the mules forward. As we joined the procession of King Ptolemy’s army, the spy peeked into the wagon and gave me a sardonic look.
“We never did find any trace of your wife, Roman. She must be quite clever, to cover her tracks so completely. I don’t like it when a spy gives me the slip. I’ll track her down, sooner or later. And when I do . . .” He curled his lip in an expression that froze my blood, then disappeared.
CHAPTER VIII
As night fell, the army reached a fortress somewhere to the east of Alexandria.
Vaguely I sensed that the wagon had come to a halt. I dozed, not from physical weariness but from a kind of mental stupor; only by descending into half-formed dreams could my mind escape from an intolerable reality compounded of tedium and dread, physical discomfort and numbing grief.
The shackles on my ankles were loosened. Something sharp poked me into alertness.
“Up, Roman!” The spy, assisted by a few soldiers, rousted us out of the wagon. My bones ached from being jostled all day over a particularly rutted stretch of road. My legs were weak from having been cramped for hours. I staggered like a cripple, with a spear at my back to keep me moving forward.
Great walls with huge ramparts of packed earth surrounded us. In the vast enclosure of the fortress, the army went about the business of unloading provisions and preparing for the night. The buildings within the fortress walls were mostly plain and utilitarian, but one stood out on account of its opulence. Magnificent columns painted in bright colors supported a roof of gleaming copper. It was to this building that the spy drove us.
With Rupa and the boys, I waited outside, ringed by soldiers, while the spy stepped within. He was gone for a considerable time. Above us, the desert sky was ablaze. The sinking sun illuminated crimson and saffron clouds that glowed like molten metal, then faded to the dull blue of cooling iron, then darkened into ever-deeper shades of blue fretted by silver stars. I had forgotten the awesome beauty of an Egyptian sunset, but the splendor of the dying day brought me only misery. Bethesda was not there to share it with me.
At length the spy returned, looking pleased with himself. “What a lucky day for you, Roman! You shall have the great honor of meeting Captain Achillas himself!”
The murderer? I very nearly said. It was hard to imagine how else the killing of Pompey could be characterized. Clearly, Achillas was a man from whom I could expect no mercy.
Serpent-headed lamps atop iron tripods lined a long hallway decorated with a riotous profusion of hieroglyphs. The spy led us into a high-ceilinged chamber decorated in a fashion more Greek than Egyptian, with geometric rugs underfoot and vast murals depicting battles painted on the walls. Scribes and other clerics scurried here and there across the large space. At the center of all this motion were two men of very different countenance, their heads close together as they engaged in a heated conversation.
I recognized Achillas at once, from having seen him on Pompey’s galley. He was outfitted in the various regalia that marked him as Captain of the King’s Guards, with a red horsetail plume adorning his pointed helmet. His tanned face looked very dark, and his brawny physique seemed positively bull-like next to the pale, slender figure who stood beside him. The slighter man had a long face and arresting green eyes. His yellow linen robes had a hem of gold embroidery, across his forehead he wore a band of solid gold, and a magnificent pectoral of gold filigree adorned his narrow chest. He was much too old to be King Ptolemy, yet he had the look of a man used to giving orders and being obeyed.
As we approached, the two of them looked our way and stopped conversing.
The spy bowed so low that his nose almost touched the ground. As a Roman, I was unused to seeing such displays of servility, which are part of the very fabric of Egyptian life, and indeed, of life in any state headed by an absolute ruler. “Your Excellencies,” the spy hissed, keeping his eyes lowered, “here is the man I spoke of, the Roman spy whom I apprehended this morning near the abandoned shrine of Osiris, downriver from Naucratis.”
The two men looked at me—though the term man was not entirely suited to the pale fellow, I thought, as I began to perceive that he was very likely a eunuch—another feature of court life in hereditary monarchies to which Romans are unaccustomed.
Achillas looked at me and scowled. “What did you say he calls himself?”
“Gordanius, Your Excellency.”
“Gordianus,” I corrected him. The steady tone of my voice surprised even me. Used to hearing their underlings speak in hushed, toadying voices, Achillas and his companion appeared taken aback to hear a captive speak up for himself while daring to look them in the eye.
The Captain of the King’s Guards furrowed his brow. His companion stared at me without blinking.
“Gordianus,” Achillas repeated, scowling. “The name means nothing to me.”
“As I said, Excellency, he was seen on Pompey’s galley, even while you yourself were departing with the so-called Great One on board the royal skiff.”
“I didn’t notice him. Gordianus? Gordianus? Does it mean anything to you, Pothinus?”
The eunuch pressed his fingertips together and pursed his lips. “Perhaps,” he said, and clapped his hands. A scribe appeared at once, to whom Pothinus spoke in low tones while staring at me thoughtfully. The scribe disappeared through a curtained doorway.
“And these others?” said Achillas.
“The Roman’s traveling companions. As you can see—”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” snapped the captain. The spy winced and groveled.
I cleared my throat. “The big fellow is called Rupa. Born mute, but not deaf. He was a strongman with a mime troupe in Alexandria before he came to Rome. Through an obligation to his late sister, I adopted him into my family. He’s a free man and a Roman citizen now. The two slave boys are brothers. Even among the three of them, I’m not sure one could scrape up the wits to produce a passable spy.”
“Master!” protested Mopsus and Androcles in a single high-pitched voice. Rupa wrinkled his brow, not quite following the train of my comment; his simpleness had the virtue of making him a hard man to insult.
Achillas grunted and suppressed a smile. The eunuch’s face was impassive, and remained without expression when the scribe came hurrying back, bearing a scroll of papyrus. The scroll had been rolled to a specific passage, to which the scribe pointed as he handed it over to Pothinus.
“ ‘Gordianus, called the Finder,’ ” Pothinus read. “So you are in my book of names, after all. ‘Roman, born during the consulship of Spurius Postumius Albinus and Marcus Minucius Rufus in the Year of Rome 643—that would make you, what, sixty-two years old? And looking every day of it, I must say! ‘Wife: half-Egyptian, half-Jewish, called Bethesda, formerly his slave (acquired in Alexandria), mother to his daughter. Two sons, both adopted, one freeborn and called Eco, the other slave-born and called Meto—about whom, see addenda.’ ” Pothinus looked pointedly at the scribe, who lowered his head like a scolded dog and ran off to fetch another scroll. The eunuch was about to continue reading when, catching sight of someone behind me, he abruptly assumed a subservient posture, with his hands at his sides and his head bowed. Achillas did the same.
The piping of a flute accompanied the arrival of the young king. All activity in the large chamber ceased. The various scribes and officers stopped whatever they were doing, as if petrified by Medusa. Some hierarchy, unclear to me, apparently allowed some of them to remain standing while others dropped to their knees, and still others prostrated themselves entirely, falling flat on their faces with arms outstretched. If I was in doubt as to the procedure incumbent on me, the spy informed me of it
.
“Drop down, you Roman dog! Down on your knees, with your face to the floor!” He punctuated this order with several pokes to my ribs.
I caught only a glimpse of the king, resplendent in robes of gold and silver and wearing the cobra-headed uraeus crown. With my hands tied behind me, it was not easy to drop to my knees and lower my face to the floor. The posture was humiliating. Behind me I heard Androcles whisper to his brother, “Look at the master with his backside stuck up in the air!” This was followed by a tiny yelp as the spy kicked Androcles to remind him that he had assumed the same vulnerable posture. The spy then dropped to his knees, just as the king and his retinue came striding by.
“Captain Achillas, and my Lord Chamberlain,” said Ptolemy. A boy he might be, but his voice had already changed into that of a man, for it was lower than I expected.
“Your Majesty,” the two said in unison.
“My loyal subjects may rise and go about their business,” said Ptolemy.
Pothinus conveyed the order. At once the room was abuzz with movement, as if statues had abruptly sprung to life.
The spy stood. I began to do the same, but he gave me a kick and hissed, “Stay as you are!”
From my position I could see little, but I could hear everything. The piper continued to play, but lowered his volume. It was a curious tune, simple on first hearing but repeated in odd variations. Ptolemy’s father had been dubbed Ptolemy Auletes, the Piper, on account of his love of the instrument. Was this one of the late king’s compositions? For young Ptolemy to go about accompanied by this link to his father was the sort of device that Roman politicians used; in a struggle to the death with his sister Cleopatra, it behooved the young king to use any means possible to lay claim to his father’s legacy.
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