Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  Cleopatra caught her breath again. “Tros of Samothrace?” She laughed, with a half-note of excitement peculiar to her. “I remember him well. He came to my father’s court and said the world was round. I stood behind the curtain, and they punished me afterward for saying I agreed with him. My father agreed with him, too, being drunk, and not afraid when he was drunk; but the priests said such mysteries were not good for people to know, and they tried to have Tros imprisoned, but Olympus warned him, and my father gave him some money, being drunk again, so that he might go away and prove what shape the world is.”

  “Olympus should have minded his own business!” said Diomedes, thrusting his beard forward, scowling.

  Seeing he was not looking at her, Cleopatra smiled, and one of her women, believing the smile auspicious, came forward with slippers and a thin robe of silk, embroidered with Persian roses.

  Charmian returned and stood beside her.

  “Do you think there will be a battle?” Charmian asked. “Oh, you virgins,” remarked Cleopatra. “Virgins think of nothing but extremes — no middle course!”

  Diomedes uttered a brassy cackle of a laugh. “They say of Tros, he never fights if he can get what he wants by running,” he remarked; but it was not quite clear whether he approved of that or not.

  He of Samothrace, it seemed, had no intention of beginning the hostilities. The cymbals clanged again. The oar-blades on the port side all flashed forward to the limit of their scope and hung there, ready to snatch and swing the ship entirely round.

  “I wonder what he wants,” said Cleopatra.

  “Water — food — fuel — medicine — fresh fruit — news — information — any of the things that mariners put into port for,” Diomedes answered. “Crews go sick and mutiny unless they are allowed on shore at intervals. Or perhaps he brings news of Roman doings — Aries! The clumsy, mud-begotten fellaheen! I am ashamed! By Alexander’s right hand, if we had a man like Tros, and one such ship, we could defy your brother’s mongrels — and Rome — and—”

  “All the world, if only Tros would admit the world is flat!” laughed Cleopatra.

  Diomedes scowled, He did not like irreverence.

  “Watch those clumsy, ill-trained idiots!” he muttered.

  One of the war-ships had put a rowboat overside and managed it so awkwardly that the boat upset, spilling men into the harbor. So the other war-ship lowered a boat in turn while the crew of the first were fished for, and an officer was rowed toward the long vermilion ship, who did a deal of shouting at long range before venturing cautiously alongside.

  “Oh, well, I suppose that means Tros will join my brother. They will buy him,” said Cleopatra.

  It was her first note of discouragement that day. But suddenly her mood changed.

  “Diomedes! Go and — no! Your imagination is as flat as you think the world is! Besides, I want you for something else! Find me Apollodorus. Tell him to reach Tros of Samothrace, and to win him over to my side. Tell him he may promise anything — you understand me? Anything!”

  “Tros is not the man to choose the weaker of two sides,” Diomedes objected, recovering possession of his middle age, that patronized her youth. “And promises — Tros has heard them by the hundred thousand. Neither is Apollodorus likely to pursue safe courses.”

  “That is why I send Apollodorus and not you! He makes no gods of mothy precedents! Go, tell Apollodorus he must bring me Tros of Samothrace — must bring him here! When you have done that, go into the city and buy me food that has not been poisoned! Buy it yourself, have it cooked in your own household and bring it to me with your own hands! That is how much I trust you. Go, sir!”

  Diomedes backed away, the buckles of bronze armor clanking. He looked as unimaginative and as honest as the door-post that he struck before he turned and left the bedroom.

  Cleopatra gestured to her women. “Dress me,” she commanded. Three of them went to make ready the bath, and for a long time she paid no attention to the other three, who stood mute, in a row on the balcony threshold, looking nervous. They were dressed in the loose, white Syrian slave-smocks without border or embroidery, but though the slave-look haunted them, they had a definite air of being better bred and educated than the ordinary run of servants.

  The small boat rowed back to the war-ship. The first war-ship swung and started slowly for the inner harbor; the second followed, even more slowly, seeming to strive after dignity but failing, because, every time a whip cracked, an oar moved out of time. The harbor master appeared in doubt what to do and dawdled in the offing. The long vermilion ship lay still, her oar-blades idle on the water but the spaces between them as exactly measured as the teeth of a gigantic comb. Nothing happened until the Egyptian ships had passed into the inner harbor.

  Then the man on the poop shook his staff and suddenly the cymbals clanged. The oars leaped into life with an intoxicating quiver of trained strength held in restraint — . paused, ready for the dip — and plunged, as the staff set the time for the tune of the harps and the cymbals that governed the speed.

  “That is the way to rule — the way I will rule,” said Cleopatra. “That man has dignity.”

  The long ship, heedless of the harbor-master’s shouts, ignoring him as utterly as whales ignore the gulls, advanced to within a cable’s length of the public wharf about a bow-shot from the palace windows and dropped anchor. She was instantly surrounded by a swarm of small boats, some of which tried to make fast to her stern. But the man on the high poop shouted, and though the moving bulwark with its shields was lowered, and a ladder was hung overside, no small boat trespassed within the reach of the vermilion oar-blades.

  It was not until armed men had been stationed at regular intervals along the ship’s sides that the oars were drawn in through the ports and the big man, followed by three others, descended the ladder into one of the shore-boats, deliberately chosen from the swarm that plied for hire.

  He was rowed ashore and swallowed by the yelling crowd that already choked the wharf, making his way through it with the sturdy gait peculiar to deep-sea captains. Then the small boats, full of shouting hucksters, circled around and around the great ship, keeping their distance because of businesslike-looking watchmen armed with slings.

  A barge-load of outrageously behaving women tried to approach the ladder, but an officer on the high poop threatened and the flat barge backed away, the women screaming ribaldry and someone on the barge inciting them to greater effort. Two of the women stripped themselves and danced naked on the barge’s foredeck, obscenely wriggling their stomachs.

  Cleopatra turned and faced her slaves, who flinched but stood their ground. They had seen the crow die. One was still holding the goblet of milk, and another the plate of cakes. The third, a Circassian, had nothing in her hand.

  “Drink the milk!” Cleopatra commanded, looking straight at the Circassian.

  Charmian bit her lip. The Circassian hesitated, caught her breath, then laughed half bravely and took the goblet from the other’s hand.

  “If I had known,” she said, “I would have eaten and drunk to warn you they were poisoned.”

  She mastered herself and raised the goblet to her lips.

  “I should have known. I deserve to die. Farewell, O Queen!”

  Cleopatra snatched the goblet from her. She dashed its contents in the faces of the other two.

  “Call the guard!” she commanded.

  Charmian ran to the door. Two Nubians entered, stolid and solid as polished ebony, with leopard-skin over their shoulders and immense swords sheathed in scabbards of red leather.

  “That Circassian is innocent, but take those other two slaves to my sister Arisinoe and tell her she should punish them for failure — even as I am being punished for having failed to do my duty long ago. I should have slain Arsinoe.”

  The Nubians seized the trembling women by the arms and hurried them away. Cleopatra turned to the Circassian.

  “Is the bath ready?” she asked. “Oh, if we could wash
away our bodies and leave nothing but our souls! Osiris! But what black loathsome objects some of us would be!”

  CHAPTER II. “Queen? Which queen?”

  Be man what he may, the fact is, nevertheless, that he conceives himself to be something different from what he appears to himself to be and to what others think he is.

  — Fragment from The Diary Of Olympus.

  THE palace occupied the whole of the Lochias Promontory, which jutted out into the harbor and was surrounded by a high wall. Thus the Royal Area consisted almost of a city in itself.

  Outside that Lochias wall, at its eastward end, not far from the public wharves but far enough to avoid the smell of fish and other perishable cargoes, was a block of palatial apartments facing inward on a courtyard in which a fountain played amid palms and semi-tropical shrubs.

  There was always a swarm of men and women at the bronze gate, which stood wide open day and night but was guarded by armed Nubian slaves who admitted nobody without credentials. Within that courtyard there was never a woman seen since it was part of the pose of the gilded bachelors who lived there to pretend to avoid women, and particularly matrimony. They regarded themselves as the salt of the earth — sole arbiters of fashion, sport and politics. They patronized and honestly admired the arts and kept themselves, at least in theory, abreast of all the sciences, in which Alexandria led the world. They were mostly pure Greek by ancestry, spoke Greek and regarded themselves as Greeks, although there were Latins among them — very rarely an Egyptian. They thought of Alexandria as a Greek jewel bound on to the brow of Africa.

  Apollodorus leaned against a palm within the courtyard, discussing the merits of certain horses with a group of his Cappadocian grooms. He glanced up sharply as he saw Diomedes come clanking importantly through the gate, then continued his conversation. Diomedes came on until the grooms slunk aside to make room for him, but Apollodorus affected not yet to have seen the veteran.

  “Greeting, Apollodorus.”

  “Voice of Pluto! Man of iron, how you terrify me! May the beautiful gods, if there are any, forgive you, Diomedes! You haven’t shaved your upper lip this morning.”

  “What is that to you? Faugh! You smell like a woman, of roses! I have been up all night, protecting the life of the young Queen to whom you profess such wordy loyalty. If you had manlier inclinations, Apollodorus, you might put your talents to a better use than setting fashions and admiring your own beauty. I would admire a few good scars on you.”

  “Man of blood! But to what do I owe the honor of this visit? Do you think I am corruptible? You haven’t come because you love me. What then?”

  “I have come to find out how reliable you are. Horns! I am a soldier. I seek deeds, not words!” said Diomedes angrily. “I seek no favors. Zeus forbid that!”

  “Aren’t you mixing your theology? First Horus, and now Zeus! They say they have some very interesting gods in India; why not add them to your list? There was a lecture about them in the library — discreetly distant entities to swear by, too remote for consequences!”

  “Isis! How long shall I brook your insolence? I bring you a direct command from Royal Egypt.”

  “Oh, you are running an errand for her? That is different. What says she, O oldest of all messengers!”

  “I am young enough to slit your cockscomb! Take care how you irritate me! You are to find Tros the Samothracian, who came ashore from that ship with the purple sails.”

  “And? Having found him? What then?”

  “Bring him.”

  “To you?”

  “To me.”

  “She said that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Diomedes, you astonish me! You at your age! She has all the intuitions that distinguish royalty from blunderers like you and sybarites like me. She would know without anyone telling her, that I would not run your errand. I know you are lying to me, Diomedes!”

  “You Sicilian rogue!”

  Diomedes faced about and Apollodorus’ mocking laugh followed him out through the gate to where slaves awaited him, holding his restless red stallion.

  “My chariot!” Apollodorus ordered then. “Who knows where Tros of Samothrace went?”

  His grooms knew all the gossip. Two of them vied to be first to inform him.

  “To the house of Esias — Esias the Jew.”

  The chariot, cream-colored, gilt-edged, decorated with colored painting representing the nine Muses and drawn by three white horses, was at the gate in charge of a Thracian charioteer almost more swiftly than Apollodorus could reach his chambers and throw on a light driving cloak of cloth-of-gold. The Thracian passed him the reins and sat facing the rear, on one of the two small seats. Apollodorus guided the impatient team through crowded cross-streets at a slow trot.

  There was a kaleidoscope of color — shopfronts, garments, head-dresses, and every imaginable shade of human skin. The din was a delirium of many tongues, for all the languages of the Levant were spoken in Alexandria. The smell was of spices and fruit, and of flowers crushed underfoot. The flow of movement, mixed of dignity and restlessness, was mainly north and south, from the wharves on the shore of the Mareotic Lake at the city’s rear to the sea-front. Long lines of loaded slaves, with a foreman in front of them shouting for right of way, threaded the swarm that jammed the corners of the streets to listen to excited public speakers airing views on topics of the moment.

  Handsome slaves, gaudily dressed to challenge attention and selected for their strength of lung, stood on platforms to yell news of auctions, amusements and cure-all remedies. Beggars, tumblers and performers of acrobatic tricks, singers of topical songs and groups of itinerant musicians completed the confusion, and at times Apollonius had to draw rein until the charioteer could press to the front and force a passage. He was not recognized until he swung eastward into the Street of Canopus and let the horses break into a gallop.

  But the moment the galloping hooves were heard, heads turned and he was greeted with the joyous roar of a crowd that loved its sports above its pocketbook. The cheers increased into a tumult until the colonnaded arches of the three-mile-long street volleyed with applause:

  “Apollodorus! Oh, Apollodorus!”

  It was paved, that street, and all the buildings facing it were built of marble. It was more than a hundred feet broad, stretching the full length of Alexandria from gate to gate. The roofs of the colonnades were riotous with flowers and women’s garments; they were the stadium from which merchants’ wives viewed the frequent political rioting, or delighted equally to watch the chariots of men of fashion racing, in despite of law, in mid-street. But there was only one chariot deemed worthy of attention when Apollodorus came in view.

  Men, women, children, soldiers, slaves, all surged to catch a glimpse of him. Speed — furious speed preserved him from being hemmed in and almost worshiped. He drove with apparent recklessness that masked consummate skill, standing with legs apart, his golden cloak afloat in the breeze behind him, laughing and waving his hand to the crowd that poured in from the side-streets just a stride too late to block his way.

  Women threw flowers from upper windows. One tossed her heavy bracelet into the chariot from the roof of the colonnade; it hit the charioteer, drawing blood. Apollodorus threw a kiss to her, and bade the Thracian keep the bracelet as a salve for damages. The whole voice of Alexandria seemed blended into one exultant roar:

  “Apollodorus! Oh-h-h! Apollodorus!”

  The swarm grew denser as he neared the Jewish quarter at the east end of the city, for the uproar had warned the throngs in meaner streets, who flowed into the Street of Canopus ahead of him and forced him to slow down at last. He gave the reins then to the charioteer and made the best of it with good grace, sitting down on the little rear seat to lean out and grasp the hands of men, laughing when a woman jumped into the chariot. She kissed him, pulling his wreath awry. He gave it to her. The crowd snatched it, tearing it to pieces to wear as favors.

  The last half-mile was covered at a slow wal
k, and even that speed would have been impossible if the Thracian had not tickled the horses with his whip to make them rear and plunge; but they arrived at last in front of a building that was as big, if not as beautiful, as any on that famous street.

  It was of the same decadent Greek design as all the others, fronted by a Corinthian colonnade; but sacks of corn, opened for inspection, and men of many nations, some sailors, some from the desert, lounging in the three wide doorways and sprawling on long benches on the sidewalk, gave the place an untidy atmosphere of business that seemed to have overflowed from the dense and shabby back-streets where the Jews lived cheek by jowl in smelly tenements.

  Apollodorus jumped out of the chariot and reached the shop door in one bound, escaping into gloom where counters served by fifty or sixty slaves reached in long parallel rows from front to rear. He was met and greeted by a curly-bearded Jew, dressed in embroidered silk, whose dark face was a cartoon of oblique diplomacy.

  “Greeting! Greeting! Greeting! Noble Apollodorus!” The Jew clasped his own right hand in his left and shook it, as if shaking hands with fortune. “Golden greeting! We are honored! What is it we are privileged to do for the noble Apollodorus? Corn for the stable — good corn, heavy and plump in the grain? A new slave? We have a new consignment of Circassians and Greeks — some very pretty girls guaranteed virgins — some Persians — an Arabian or two — and three from Gaul, extremely choice. Or is it—”

  “Esias! Esias himself!” Apollodorus interrupted.

  “How delighted he will be! How flattered! How it will grieve him that he is engaged in private conference and cannot—”