by Tula Neal
“Are you some kind of Amazon who abhors the touch of a man?”
“You are detaining me against my will. I am a freeborn woman of rank.” She could also have explained about her oath but she saw no reason to do so. She doubted men like him could understand such things. Men like him just took what they wanted without caring about the consequences or the effect on others. “You have no right to hold me or to keep me on your ship.”
“It’s my ship, and I can do as I please. The only rank that counts here and now is mine.”
Imi wondered why the goddess didn’t hurl a thunderbolt at the arrogant man, right where he stood. Did she sleep? Imi’s mission had been blessed by both the high priest and the high priestess of the Great Mother, she who was known as Isis to Imi and her people and as Artemis to the Ephesians. The priest and priestess were the protectors of Arsinoe, the rightful queen of Egypt whom Imi served and on whose behalf she’d gone to Rome to retrieve the sacred artifacts. Arsinoe’s restoration to the throne depended on the success of Imi’s mission just as surely as Egypt’s freedom from Roman control depended on Arsinoe. Surely the goddess wished her to succeed for Egypt, if not for the rightful queen, Arsinoe, herself.
“Are you one of Cleopatra’s assassins? Did she send you to kill me?” But even as she spoke she realized she had miscalculated. There would have been no point in bringing her to the ship if he meant to kill her. He could simply have murdered her on the road if that was his intent. Unless, of course, he meant to put her to the question, to make her divulge Arsinoe’s plans, the names of her supporters.
He frowned at her.
“I am no assassin. People are pleased to call me a pirate or a brigand, but none can say I kill people for pay or sport.” He smiled slyly. “You must be an important person. More important than I can tell by your dress if you have such enemies as would send murderers after you.”
Curses! She had certainly made a mistake. She should have held her stupid, blabbing tongue.
“I will give you and your men a rich reward if you’ll take me to my destination,” she said, changing tack. He must not suspect who she was or guess the importance of her mission. Even if he did not work for the queen, Cleopatra’s spies were everywhere.
“I can get a rich reward by selling both you and the treasure in your box,” he responded. “In fact, that’s precisely what I plan to do.”
“Sell me?!” She was horrified. “No. No. You cannot.” It couldn’t end like this. Not the hope of all their dreams. Not after her successful execution of the theft from the Temple of Venus.
“I . . . I’ll give you fifty talents if you’ll free me.”
“That’s as much as Rome paid to ransom Caesar from my Cilician brethren.” He rubbed his chin. “Do you have such a sum?”
“I can get it.”
“You mean you don’t have it on you? The box you guard so jealously clinks only weakly, but you would not release it even during your faint.”
“If you take me where I want to go . . . where I need to be . . . you will be well rewarded. I can promise you that.”
“And where would that be?”
Imi frowned at him. If she told him that much, would he be able to guess the rest? But no, he was just a pirate, what could he know of the political strategies of queens?
“Ephesus,” she said as she watched him carefully to see what effect the name of the city had on him. It was one she didn’t expect.
“Ha.” He threw his head back and laughed, a deep, throaty sound. “So, you think to lay a trap for me, beautiful lady?”
“A trap?”
“It is known that Marc Antony prepares to go there, and he is no friend to me or my kind. Do you hope to lead me like a lamb into the lion’s jaws?”
This was news, indeed. Wild joy surged through her. Marc Antony going to Ephesus! Her mistress would be well pleased. They had not dared to hope for such a thing. But if Imi didn’t get there before him or at least hard on his heels, everything would still be for naught. The stubborn pirate captain had to take her there. He had to.
“A hundred talents!”
“A hundred?” This time he laughed so hard, tears came to his eyes. “You have not even fifty,” he gasped, “but you offer me a hundred. You are utterly charming. I will certainly get a good price for you at Delos.”
“No.” The very thought of it chilled her to the bone. “You can’t sell me. I am no slave. Please. Oh, goddess, how have I found myself in this?” She sank to her knees, covering her face with her hands. “Please, I beg of you. Anything but this. If you don’t want to take me to Ephesus, I will not ask it of you. You can leave me at any port. I will make my way to Ephesus on my own, and I will get the talents and give them to you in exchange for my freedom.”
“How?” he said, dropping to his knees. He grabbed her wrists and pried her hands away from her face, a move that forced her to look at him. “How will you get them to me?”
“Tell me your name, and I will find you, I swear it. Only let me go. You do not know . . .” She stopped herself just in time. “Please,” she whispered.
“What don’t I know? What are you keeping from me?”
“I can’t tell you, just please, please release me.”
His eyes softened for a minute, and she thought she’d gotten through to him, but, in the next instant, he’d leaped to his feet and seized her box. Before she could pull him away or snatch it out of his hands, he’d opened the lid. Inside lay revealed the treasures she’d risked everything to obtain: the sacred gold sistrum, the loop rising over a carving of the great goddess, Isis; the small gold coffin no more than six inches long, also carved to depict Isis and covered in the secret writing of the priests; and the gold, jewel–studded snake diadem.
Imi glared at him. She wanted to take them back from him, but she gritted her teeth and bided her time. He seemed to believe they were playing some sort of childish game.
“I will not sail to Ephesus and place myself and my men in danger, but I will take these now as payment for your freedom,” he said, fingering the diadem. “You must—”
“No,” Imi wailed, not waiting for him to finish. He offered her Seth’s bargain. Without the articles, Arsinoe’s cause was lost. If she gave them up, her freedom would mean nothing because it would come at the expense of Egypt’s future. “I cannot.”
“Then I’ll just take them as my reward for seeing to your safety and sell you at Delos as I’d originally planned.” He balanced the little coffin in his hand, as if trying to assess its weight; with his thumb, he rubbed the sacred writing.
“What?”
“Had I left you on the road, brigands would surely have found you and your fate would probably be worse than whatever you will find at Delos.”
“No,” Imi cried. She dove for her things and grabbed them out of his hands before he could react.
“They are mine. You cannot have them,” she said, panting. “You should not even have touched them.” When she got to Ephesus, she would have to tell the high priest. They would need to perform some kind of purification rite on the sacred items.
“May I remind you, you are on my ship. I can touch anything I please.” As he said it, he drew his index finger along her jawline. Imi shivered at the contact but refused to shrink away from him as all her instincts demanded. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her cower before him.
“Do you understand?” he asked, his voice grown suddenly raspier, more urgent. “My ship. And, until I sell you, you are mine, too, and whatever belongs to you belongs to me.”
Imi pressed her lips together and didn’t answer; her mind worked furiously. She had to escape.
“Go now.”
“What? Where?”
“On deck, wherever you wish.” He shrugged and turned away from her. “I gave you the comfort of my bed while you were asleep to the world, but now I have need of it.” He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Unless you wish to stay and keep me company?” He sat down among his cushions and
patted the bed beside him.
“I do not.”
“I thought so.” He threw himself backward, his eyes closed. “Leave the box here. It will be safer.”
So angry she could spit but knowing he was right, Imi rested the box back on the table and swept out.
Chapter Two
When she was gone, Seleucus opened his eyes and stared hard at the wooden ceiling above him. He was even more puzzled by the young woman than he had been before.
He had kept his face expressionless, but he’d immediately recognized the importance of the articles in the ivory box. Almost every depiction of Isis that he’d ever seen showed her carrying the sistrum, while the uraeus, the snake on the bejeweled diadem, symbolized the power of Egyptian royalty. He remembered seeing the present queen’s father during his visit to Carthage. His mother had taken him to see Pharaoh Ptolemy’s procession, and he remembered that the pharaoh had worn a diadem very similar to the one his mysterious captive carried. How it had shone in the mid–day sun! Sweat beaded Seleucus’s forehead. Not just similar; it looked exactly like it. But how was that possible and how had it come into the possession of this slip of a woman?
Seleucus squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to put it all together. Hadn’t he heard some rumor while Caesar was alive that when Egypt’s queen went to Rome to be with him, she had taken certain of the royal family’s treasures with her? It was said she’d left them behind in the Temple of Venus for safe–keeping.
Uneasy is the sleep of kings and queens. He’d heard it repeated often enough, but the saying could have been written by an Egyptian. Ptolemy himself had once fled to Rome seeking refuge from his enemies. He had been lucky the Romans considered him a friend. Caesar and Pompey supported his claim and restored his throne to him. But not everybody was glad about the influence Rome had gained over their country. When Ptolemy died, Cleopatra, the present queen, had with Caesar’s help fought off the claims of her own brother and sister and ascended to the throne amid a storm of controversy. Her siblings wanted to rule the United Lands and drive Rome out, and there were many Egyptians who liked the sound of that. The brother and sister had managed to raise an army, but the brother was killed fighting Caesar’s legionnaires and the rebellion collapsed. Caesar sent the sister to Rome, a captive. Eventually, she was freed and left the city, but where was she now?
Seleucus racked his brain trying to remember any snippet he might have heard about the mutinous princess. He didn’t think Cleopatra had allowed her back into Egypt. The people of Alexandria had rallied behind Arsinoe before. Cleopatra would not risk their doing so again. That meant that, if she was alive, Arsinoe was a princess in exile and, thus, a princess in need of friends. And where better to look for those than in the East? At Ephesus, where his lovely captive wanted him to take her. He remembered then that Ptolemy, Arsinoe’s father, had also sought sanctuary in that beautiful city during his troubles. Arsinoe might have thought she could find supporters there. Friends of her father’s who hadn’t returned when he did, enemies of Cleopatra, and plain old troublemakers who would ally themselves with her. Seleucus turned on his side to stare at Imi’s beautiful ivory box, but any answers it contained were not revealed to him. The questions, however, continued to race through his mind until, finally, he fell asleep from exhaustion.
*****
Imi clambered up on the deck of the small galley. She staggered over to the railing, hoping she’d find her sea legs long before the ship left the Roman coast behind. Looking out over the waves, she took a couple deep breaths. She needed to steady her nerves and gather her thoughts.
Why had the Great Mother not come to her aid? Did she not realize they faced the failure of all their plans? Did she not care? But Imi could not face that thought, would not allow herself to even imagine that perhaps the Great Mother had deserted Arsinoe’s cause. That could not be. Arsinoe was the chosen one of Egypt’s gods. The Prophet of Amun in Memphis had declared it when she was still a child, long, long before the Great Mother’s Ephesian servants had seen her and said the same thing. Yet it was Cleopatra, Arsinoe’s sister, who sat on the throne; a woman who saw nothing wrong with prostituting herself and the country to the Romans. To help Arsinoe gain the throne, Imi had to get back to Ephesus with the icons. The princess had trusted her with the task, her and no one else. Who would suspect her, they had reasoned? A young woman, alone? And now she teetered on the brink of failure. Imi winked back tears and turned to survey the deck. She had to think, to come up with a plan. This was no time for tears.
A small knot of men and women huddled to the side of the deck farthest from her. They were roped together by their necks. Imi stifled a horrified gasp as she stared at them. Slaves! Bound for the market at Delos! As she was unless she could change the pirate captain’s mind.
Stripped of much of the treasures that were hers by right as a king’s daughter, Arsinoe had barely enough to feed herself and those loyal to her. Imi had been sent to Rome with just what she needed to get her there and back. She had nothing with which to bargain for her freedom. In Rome she had depended on the kindness of the Great Mother’s priests and on the friendship of those who supported the princess’s cause. The talents she’d promised to the pirate were what she thought Arsinoe could raise once the sacred articles were in her hands. Surely, rich and powerful men would rally to her then, knowing that investing in her cause would pay off in the future when she was queen of Egypt, with the riches of that land at her disposal. That was what Imi had counted on when she sought to bribe the pirate, but he’d turned her down flat.
Imi scanned the faces of the pirate crew, seeking a sympathetic face, even perhaps a countryman who could be persuaded to help her. But most of the men who busied themselves about her had the olive skin and fierce, hawk–like features of their captain. They were Cilicians like him, and Cilicians were the traditional enemies of Imi’s people. There was no reason any of them should help her, not when they risked the displeasure of their captain. The rest of the crew had the long hair of the Parthians, a race of which she knew little and who could thus not be counted on for help. The Hittite had manhandled her. She would not ask him for anything. She had to come up with another idea.
Imi sought a quiet corner of the deck to think. She was about to crouch down behind a great coil of rope when the Hittite came up to her.
“Are you wanting anything?” he asked.
“Yes,” she snapped. “My freedom. Land. My friend Lucius. My home. Food. My own bed.”
The man grinned. “A long list. And beyond such as me to grant. But, if you did thirst, I have wine.” He held up a jug.
Imi frowned.
“I would have water or nothing. Thank you.”
“Water, then. I will bring it directly.”
He was as good as his word, returning minutes later with a gold, ruby studded goblet in one hand and another jug in the other. He handed her the goblet.
“From your recent raid?” Imi asked, unable to prevent the sneer in her voice.
“A fine treasure. We have no complaints.”
Imi bet they didn’t, but she kept the thought to herself.
The water was clear and refreshing, and she gulped it down thirstily.
“Thank you.” She handed back the goblet.
“Perhaps now you will grant me a favor.” His eyes glittered.
Oh, no, Imi thought, here it comes. She should have known better than to think the man’s kindness sprung purely from the goodness of his heart.
“You are a priestess of Isis, are you not? Do not dissemble,” he said, when she started to deny it. Her! A priestess! “We know who you are.” His face grew avid. “We know also that the priestesses of Isis know all the myriad ways in which to please a man. You are taught the tricks of the East, is it not so?”
Shocked beyond words, Imi shook her head.
“No,” she said. Would these rumors persist through eternity? Only in a few temples did those who served the goddess offer themselves to her worshippers,
and only at certain times of the year, but everywhere she went, the ignorant believed it a common practice. “In any case, I am not a priestess.”
“I don’t believe you.” The man’s small eyes narrowed. “I want . . . “ His voice hoarsened. “I want you to . . . “ He reached out to grab at her breast. Whatever else he was going to say was lost as she raked her nails down his cheek and spun away from him.
“By the castrated balls of Attis, catch her,” he shouted to his shipmates. Imi ducked under a sail and jumped nimbly over a crate, evading the grasping hands of the leering men who laughed and shouted to each other. It was a game to them—and she had become their plaything—but when they caught her, and Imi had no doubt they would, things would turn serious and she would have nowhere to turn, no way to evade the intent she could hear in their voices. They cornered her near the other captives.
“Me, first,” said the Hittite. She spit on him. The gob landed on his cheek, but he didn’t even seem to notice. He spun her around, pinning her right arm to her back. His cock pushed against her bottom. Imi twisted and turned, but he was too big and powerful. He bent her forward and pulled up her tunic to the cheers of the men behind him. He ripped her undergarment away and threw it into the sea.
“Hold, Sahman.” A voice cut through the ribaldry like a dagger through silk. “Hold, I say.” The captain strode through the suddenly silent knot of men. Imi squirmed, embarrassed that he should see her like that, her behind bared to the world. Sahman suffered no embarrassment. With a quick thrust of his pelvis, he attempted to spear her. Imi threw herself forward. Sahman hissed in frustration. He yanked her back to him, twisting her arm. Imi grunted in pain. Then just as quickly as she’d been caught, she was freed. Imi stumbled, then caught herself and smoothed her tunic down around her hips even as she turned to see what was happening.
“Did you not hear me, Sahman?” the captain asked, in an almost–conversational tone. He gripped the crewman’s shoulder in one hand.
