Arion still didn’t move. “Writing letters.”
“Writing letters in good Greek to the gentlemen I want to do business with,” agreed Ani. His stomach had gone tight and his breath was short. He did want this, he realized: he wanted it more than he’d been willing to admit. Aristodemos, whose place in Berenike he was trying to usurp, was a gentleman, an educated Greek, and the men he dealt with—in Berenike and down the river in Alexandria—were Greeks. They regarded illiterate Egyptians with contempt. Ani could read and write a bit, but letters … anything he could produce would be poorly penned, badly phrased, and full of spelling mistakes, and the fine gentlemen would laugh at it and throw it away. He had thought he might hire a scribe, but the sort of scribe he could get, a half-trained villager, would be only a slight improvement on his own clumsy hand. Arion, though—an Alexandrian from a rich family, member of a select unit especially appointed by the queen—Arion could probably write letters that would make Aristodemos look uneducated! And Arion could tell him other things—the layout and rules and manners of Alexandria; how to drape those damned Greek cloaks the way gentlemen did; how to behave at a dinner party, which—gods!—he’d need to know tomorrow night. He needed a gentleman, and gentlemen, by definition, weren’t for hire. He needed Arion.
Arion lowered his hand and looked at him in disgust. His eyes were still running. “You want me to work for you,” he said flatly. “To be your secretary!” It was clear he thought this only marginally less degrading than the position he’d previously believed Ani had intended for him.
“Informally,” Ani said hastily. “We don’t have to make out a contract. You could write letters and advise me on Greek customs, and I would provide you with transport to Alexandria, and with, um, food and clothing during the journey. When we reach Alexandria, you’ll be free to forget about me and go where you please.” He leaned forward. “You owe me your life and twenty drachmae already. I’d take your agreement to this as full payment of the debt. I don’t deny that I’d profit by it, but you would, too. It would get you home to your own city, and at the very least you’d have the comfort of knowing how your friends are. Perhaps they’ll be able to help you.”
“They will not be able to help me,” Arion said, in a very faint voice, “but I would like … I would like …” He stopped.
“You can go to Alexandria,” coaxed Ani. “There’s no sense dying, or in handing yourself over to your enemies. There’s no point throwing yourself away.” He started to touch the boy’s shoulder again, then stopped himself. “I’ll get you some water,” he said instead, “and you can lie there and think about it. Whatever you decide, there’s no hurry. You can stay with us as long as we’re in Berenike, and we’ll be here for the next five days at the least. Tonight we’re getting a tent, and it will be more comfortable for you.”
“I should have died,” was Arion’s reply, but he did not move from the bedroll for the rest of the afternoon.
TWO HOURS BEFORE sunset Ani, shaved and dressed in his best clothing, led the procession of laden camels to the warehouse at the corner of Market and Harbor Streets. It was a sturdy building adjoining a grand house which, as Ani immediately guessed, belonged to Archedamos. The port supervisor saw their goods stowed with considerable satisfaction, collected a month’s warehousing fee, and took his new friend across the street to meet his neighbour Kratistes, who was very pleased to rent out a tent to the city’s only customer. They loaded it onto one of the camels, brought it back, and were in the middle of pitching it when a company of armored men marched down the ramp onto the beach.
Ani saw them coming, and he dropped his guy-rope and stared in alarm. Eight of the men wore mail shirts over short red tunics, and carried tall spears and oblong shields—red, decorated with a pattern of lightning-bolts and wings in yellow. Another man, probably an officer, wore a gilded cuirass and had a sword. The setting sun gleamed off nine polished helmets crested with red horsehair. Archedamos, walking huddled up among them, looked drab, small, and very frightened.
The party marched up to the caravan and halted, the soldiers grounding their spears in the sand with a thudding hiss. The officer surveyed the caravan with an air of condescending interest. Menches and Imouthes stared back, frozen beside the half-erected tent.
“Um,” Archedamos muttered unhappily to the Roman officer. “Um. This is Ani, the caravan-owner I told you about. Umm, Ani, here is centurion Gaius Paterculus, from the Roman party aboard the Nemesis. He, um, heard of the incident at the Happy Return, and he, uh, wishes … wishes to speak to your guest.”
Ani felt sick and numb. So, Kerdon had indeed gone to the Romans. Clearly Archedamos had thought he might, but somehow Ani had never expected them to take any interest. Now they were here, and there was nothing he could do. He could neither hide Arion nor protect him—and, faced with this wall of metal, he abruptly thought to fear for his own safety as well. The Romans might well arrest him for sheltering a fugitive, and who knew what sort of treatment he could expect then?
He had a sudden intense vision of his wife and children in Coptos sitting down in the main room of his house for the evening meal, as they would at this time of day. Melanthe would say, “I wonder if Papa is in Berenike now?” and Tiathres would reply, “I only want him to come home.” Sweet Lady Isis, he prayed, only let me get home.
“I was told,” said the centurion, in clear though heavily accented Greek, “that you have given shelter to a soldier of the queen, a fugitive from the camp at Kabalsi.”
Ani swallowed several times. Tell the truth, he commanded himself. There is nothing shameful about giving help to an injured traveler, and if they punish you for it, the disgrace is theirs.
“Sir,” he said respectfully, “I found a young man lying injured and unconscious in the road near Kabalsi. I took him up and brought him with me here to Berenike, because he would have died if I’d left him. Sir, he’s very young, not more than eighteen. He was wounded and unarmed. The gods command us to show piety and to be merciful to strangers and travelers.”
“Were you at the Greek camp at Kabalsi?”
“Me?” said Ani, caught by surprise. “No, of course not! I’m from Coptos: I came here with a caravan of linen trade goods. Archedamos can vouch for that: my goods are in his warehouse.”
“He has already done so,” the Roman admitted. “Did you ask this young man who he was and what he was doing lying in the road?”
“Sir, he was unconscious when I found him.” Let the Roman understand he’d given help first, and asked questions later! “I asked him when he woke, the following day. He told me that his name is Arion and that he’s from Alexandria. When I questioned him more closely, he said that he and some others had been encamped in the mountains, waiting for a ship to arrive in Berenike. He said that your people had come to the camp, that there’d been a fight—which the Greeks lost—and that he had escaped. He wanted to go to Berenike to warn the ship what had happened.” He drew a deep breath. “Sir, I am very sorry if you’re offended because I helped him, but I did not think one injured youth was a matter of any importance to the masters of Egypt.”
“It is not,” said the centurion, “but I was charged with seeing that no one escaped from that camp. Where is the fugitive?”
Helplessly, Ani gestured at the awning.
Arion was asleep, his tunic still around his waist and the cloak draped loosely over his unbandaged chest to keep the flies off the wound: Ani had decided that exposure to the hot dry air would benefit the cut. The centurion looked at him a moment, then barked an order to his men. Two of them at once pulled loose the front posts of the awning and folded it back. Arion opened his eyes. He saw the centurion and began to sit up—then lay back again, his face settling into an expression of resignation.
“Your name is Arion?” asked the centurion.
The young Greek looked surprised.
“You went today to an inn called the Happy Return,” the centurion told him. “You asked for Didymos.”
“Yes,” Arion agreed. He seemed confused.
The centurion smiled. “A truthful answer. You are from the camp at Kabalsi?”
“It wasn’t at Kabalsi,” replied Arion. “It was about five miles away, up in the mountains.”
The centurion snorted. “You do not dispute, though, that you were in the camp of King Ptolemy Caesar?”
Archedamos gasped. The Roman glanced at him and asked sharply, “What?”
“The king?” asked Archedamos. “I thought … I thought they had gold there.”
“You did not know?” asked the centurion, amused. “Queen Cleopatra’s bastard and colleague was there. He is dead now—dead and burnt.” He made a dismissive gesture. “There was gold as well.”
Ani looked at Arion. The boy had shut his eyes and set his teeth as though in pain. He had never confirmed that he served the king, let alone that the king had actually been in the camp. Perhaps he’d believed that Caesarion had been able to escape while he and his comrades defended the camp, and only now realized that his protective silence had been pointless.
“I didn’t know,” said Archedamos numbly. “I had orders to assist the camp commander, who was called Eumenes. I knew nothing about the king.”
“The secret was kept well, then,” said the centurion. He seemed pleased at that, and glad of the chance to tell them about this victory for his own people. “There was a traitor—the young king’s tutor, a man called Rhodon. He sent a message to our general, and our general sent my friend Marcus Avitus and his men to take the camp, and myself and my men to take the ship on which the king planned to escape from Egypt. I and my men marched to Heroonpolis, commandeered a galley, and took the king’s ship before it could reach Berenike, cutting off his escape. This morning, however, I received a messenger from Avitus to tell me that there was no escape, since his own mission was completely successful. He and his century sailed up the Nile to Coptos, where Rhodon, the traitor, met them. He led them to the king’s camp, gave the password, and ran to find the king. He took the king’s own spear and meant to hold him prisoner, but when the king understood what had happened he was so angry that he threw himself at his tutor and ran himself through the heart on his own spear. Probably it’s true what they say, that he was feeble-minded. Just as well: none of Avitus’ people wanted to be named as the one who killed him. He was called Caesar, even though he had no right to the name.”
Arion’s eyes flew open again. “That’s a lie!”
The centurion was amused. “The queen is no better than a whore. She told Julius Caesar that the child was his, but who knows who the real father was?”
“Julius Caesar knew her better than you,” replied Arion sharply, “and he thought so highly of her that he set up her statue beside the altar of his divine ancestress, in the heart of the city of Rome. The father of Octavian was Gaius Octavius. The one with no right to call himself Caesar is your emperor, centurion.”
There was a moment of silence—and then the centurion laughed. “A warlike answer! I believe now that you fought to defend your king. Avitus said there wasn’t much fighting. None of our people died, and only a few of the enemy.”
“I am sorry for that,” Arion declared, with staggering disdain for his own safety.
“You lost, little bantam cock,” returned the centurion. He still seemed amused. “Your king is dead, and you’re unarmed and penniless and flat on your back. I was surprised to hear that anyone from the camp had arrived here. Avitus said no one had escaped.”
“I did,” insisted Arion, glaring. “I have not surrendered.”
“So I see. Well, it was dark when Avitus attacked, and there was some confusion. One wounded boy running off into the night is easily missed. What was your position in the camp, Greekling?”
Arion simply continued to glare.
“Were you a slave? An officer’s catamite, perhaps?”
“No!” exclaimed Arion in outrage. “I am freeborn, an Alexandrian and a gentleman!”
The centurion smiled again: Ani was sure that he, too, had recognized an aristocrat when he heard one, and had made the other suggestion only to bait the young man. “And what was your position in the king’s camp?”
Arion subsided sullenly. “Staff officer. With Eumenes. The commander of the king’s bodyguard.”
The centurion nodded: staff officer was exactly the kind of position one would expect a young aristocrat to hold. “That explains the wound,” he remarked. “Avitus said that the commander was one of the few who fought.”
“Yes,” agreed Arion, his jaw set. “He died bravely.”
The centurion nodded, as though this matched with what he had heard. “He would have done better to surrender, and you with him. Then he would have kept his life, and you’d have a whole skin. Well, Avitus has seen to it that your commander had a royal funeral: he was cremated along with your king. Avitus is marching the rest of your friends back to Coptos now, apart from the few who died in the attack. They’re prisoners, but they won’t be harmed. You would not have been harmed, either.”
Arion’s eyes were hot. He began to speak, stopped himself; started again. “If you wish to kill me, do it.” He glanced proudly round the others, then added hastily, “All I have to say is this: Ani helped me only because he is a pious man who believes that kindness to strangers is pleasing to the gods. He is not a supporter of the queen or an enemy of Rome. To punish him as well would be unjust.”
Ani was surprised, moved—and deeply relieved, particularly when the centurion shook his head and declared, “I am not going to punish him.”
Then the Roman lifted his head and announced loudly, “We have made Egypt a Roman province. Your queen is a prisoner. We killed your king and took possession of his treasure. It is the custom of the Roman people to spare the defeated, and our emperor, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, son of the deified Julius, wishes to begin the Roman rule of this province with clemency. He has decreed that there will be no reprisals against anyone who fought for the queen, provided that they lay down their arms now.”
He looked down at Arion, and his lips quirked in a smile. “You’ve lost your weapons, little cockerel, so we will agree that you have laid them down.”
Arion glared, and the centurion’s smiled widened. He bent, and set his hand on the young Greek’s side. Arion flinched, but the centurion had merely laid two fingers alongside the wound. “That is infected,” he said matter-of-factly. “And you have fever. I would take you back to Alexandria with us, but you’d need nursing, and even if we provided it, the voyage would probably kill you.” He straightened again. “I am going to leave you here, Arion of Alexandria, in the care of this pious caravan-owner. I have seen you and spoken to you, and I am convinced that you were at the king’s camp, but that you are no threat to anyone. Good health!”
He snapped his fingers, and his men stood to attention. He walked past them, and they fell in behind him with a stamping of feet. Helmets and spear-points glinting in the last of the sun, the Romans marched proudly off the beach.
The others watched them go. When they had stamped their way up the ramp and onto Harbor Street, Archedamos let out his breath in a long sigh. “I thank Serapis and all the gods and heroes!” he exclaimed. He hurried to Ani and slapped him on the back. “I was very much afraid for you, my good man, and for our young friend. But clemency, ha! That is an official policy I can support!”
Ani said nothing, but forced himself to grin and nod. He was perfectly certain that Archedamos had fingered him for the Romans the moment they turned up at his door. That he’d also vouched for Ani’s status as a genuine merchant meant nothing—he could hardly have done otherwise, with the goods in his own warehouse. Still, there was no point making an enemy of a man he needed as a friend.
Archedamos went over to Arion. “I am pleased that you’re out of danger, young man.”
Arion had been sitting up on an elbow, glaring after the centurion. He gave Archedamos a bewildered look and said nothing.
&nbs
p; “And you fought to defend the young king!” the port supervisor declared admiringly. “It was well done, even if it was done in vain.”
“Who are you?” Arion asked in confusion.
Archedamos smiled. “Of course, you were unconscious when I saw you last. I am Archedamos son of Aristolaos, supervisor of the port of Berenike. And you are Arion son of … ?”
Arion shook his head. He lay down suddenly, curled up on his good side, and covered his face. He was trembling.
“Ah, you’re ill!” cried Archedamos sympathetically. “You’re injured—a fearful wound!—and to be questioned like that was a shock, I’m sure, though you answered the barbarians bravely. I’ll leave you to rest. I’ll send my doctor to see to you in the morning, shall I? Good health. Ani, I’ll expect you tomorrow an hour before sunset. Good health!”
He left, walking with a light step and his head held high—a result, Ani was sure, of the just-announced Roman policy of clemency. At least he’d send a doctor.
Ani went over and knelt beside Arion. “Are you all right?”
“Leave me alone!” the boy snarled, from behind his remedy.
Cheated of martyrdom, and dismissed as no threat to anyone : a dreadful humiliation. The fact that he was, remarkably, still alive and at liberty did not seem to impress him. He could not reckon the value of his own life any better than he had that of the jewel, and he would dispose of it as casually.
Ani thought again of his wife and children sitting down to supper in Coptos: Tiathres, perhaps, holding their younger boy, Isisdoros, on her lap, while the elder, Serapion, told her about some small adventure of the day, and Melanthe looked out the window and wondered when her father would come home. He could almost see the evening sunlight shining on the table, and smell the fresh cumin bread. He would return to them whole and safe, and they would welcome him. That was a thing more precious than any jewel, more valuable than the cargo he hoped to gain. Lady Isis, he prayed, you who ordained that the True should be thought good, I thank you, great goddess, for my life and freedom.
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