Death of an Eye

by Dana Stabenow

  He scooped up her coins and handed them to her, and then tossed a handful of his own on the table—only one of them with an image of a Ptolemaic king, she noted—and rose to his feet. “Edeva! We’re going!”

  The big woman came bustling out from behind the partition and examined the cleaned plates with evident satisfaction. “Well, and it is always nice to see customers enjoying their food.”

  “I would guess it is impossible not to enjoy a meal at Edeva’s,” Tetisheri said.

  Edeva beamed. “You can bring this one back anytime, Apollodorus.”

  He smiled at Tetisheri again, who, to her continuing annoyance, blushed again. It was becoming chronic. Perhaps Zotikos had a salve. Although if he couldn’t even make a potion to ease menstrual cramps he probably wasn’t the best person to ask.

  “You can count on it, Edeva,” Apollodorus said. Oh yes, he’d noticed the blush.

  Edeva escorted them to the door where they made their farewells and stepped outside. Behind them, a bar dropped into brackets. Before them, the moon was only just rising and even though it was on the wane the light it shed was enough to turn Alexandria into a city of ghosts and shadows, pristine white pillars that the moonlight turned almost translucent, dark lines cast by the corniced roofs of massive buildings set back from the Way, and the Way itself, that broad thoroughfare so crowded during the day. Now, of course, the Way was quiet, or mostly so, most of her citizens home for the night but for those patronizing the few tavernas granted by royal charter (and in exchange for the appropriate fee) permission to stay open until the Eighteenth Hour, when Aristander’s night watch would see to it that their shutters were put firmly up on the hour. Even the camp of the Queen’s Guard was blessedly quiet, the new recruits nursing their self-inflicted wounds in their tents and the sergeants in theirs planning new tortures for the morrow.

  “What are your plans for tomorrow?”

  “I want to talk to Laogonus’ crew,” she said. “And I want to see where Khemit died.”

  He paused. “Should I have taken you to see it? On my word nothing was found but what you saw.”

  “I should like to see it all the same.”

  “Aristander will show you if I don’t get back in time.”

  “And I will make a summary of what we have discovered thus far,” she said. “It would be best if we kept a record of everything we discover. Where are you going?”

  “I will ride out to Busirus,” he said. “To see if I can find this flax farmer and his new bride.”

  “You think it’s that important?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” he said, parroting her earlier words about Laogonus. “You do, and you’re the one in charge of this investigation.”

  Tetisheri was not lacking in confidence—hard won, in her case, over a difficult childhood and an even more difficult marriage, however brief—but still she was a little taken aback, and found herself at an unaccustomed lack for words. They walked west toward where Tetisheri would turn north toward the docks and home. They paused at the intersection of the streets. She looked up at him, his fair hair turned to silver threads by Sefkhet’s fine hand. His expression as he looked upon her was hard to read. “Thank you for your escort today, Apollodorus. I accomplished much more than I would have otherwise. Especially since I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  She thought she saw the trace of a smile cross his face. “You did fine.”

  She started to contradict him when he caught her hand in his and kissed it. His lips were firmer and warmer than Deb’s, and they lingered a lot longer on her skin. Her heart seemed simply to stop beating in that moment. When he turned her hand in his own to kiss her palm, it started beating again, hard and fast, a positive thunder in her ears. She knew everything she felt was revealed on her face in that moment.

  He bowed his head and left without a word. She stared after him, her mouth slightly open, her breath coming fast.

  Which may have been why she paid less attention than she might have while negotiating those few blocks left to her own front door. As she reached for the latch she became belatedly aware of the sound of footsteps behind her. A smothering darkness fell over her head.

  She screamed, and something struck her temple. Stunned, she was conscious only of being lifted off her feet and carried away.

  5

  on the evening of the Tenth Day of the Second Week

  at the Fifteenth Hour…

  She did not lose consciousness but her head was swimming from the blow and she was gasping for air that wasn’t there. She seemed to be enveloped in a coarse blanket of some kind. One set of arms was wrapped tightly around her torso, which didn’t help with her breathing, the other around her knees, and if the way she was being jarred and jolted was any indication they were running. Until she could breathe and see to fight there was no point in fighting, so she clenched her teeth and tried to keep some track of their route. They made few turns or so it seemed to her, keeping to a straight path. West from her doorstep would lead to the Port of Eunostos. Was she to be put aboard a ship? East would have them passing through the heart of the city, the Amphitheater, the public baths, the Queen’s Guard’s training camp, the…

  The Royal Palace.

  Her captors never spoke a word to each other. Men, they had to be, and disciplined to keep silence. Soldiers? A personal guard? Trained, certainly. Employed by whom?

  They jolted to a stop, a hard knock on wood, a door creaked open, and they moved forward again, their footsteps louder now that they were inside. A pause, a muffled challenge, another door, footsteps on a hard surface. Then she was on her feet, the blanket covering her ripped off and she was being forced to her knees and her head to the floor. She was happy enough there for the moment, concentrating on catching her breath and getting her heart rate under control.

  No one called her name or demanded she rise so she took in as much of the room as she could from her cramped position. It was large and brilliantly lit by so many candles that it took a moment for her eyes to accustom themselves to the light. She dared a glance to either side and saw many pairs of feet, a few female, more male, all of them wearing slippers and sandals that Uncle Neb would have instantly recognized as the product of only the very best shoemakers in Alexandria. One pair seemed to be made of gold, another of silver, a third of leather cleverly gilded with what appeared to be both. One of the men wore a pair made entirely of cabochons of carnelian fastened together with copper links that looked oddly familiar.

  There were furniture feet, too, elaborately carved in the shapes of animals. There was one very realistic crocodile that seemed to be staring right at her. His teeth were even painted white. Or possibly inlaid with mother of pearl. The floor was polished marble and what she could see of the walls seemed to be plaster painted wet with figures from Greek myths in every color of the rainbow; Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite tempting Hephaestus, Athena with her shield, Mercury with his winged sandals, Poseidon with his trident.

  She was very much afraid she knew exactly where she was.

  “Well, get her up on her feet,” a pettish voice said. “We can’t question her with her face on the floor.”

  “And we can always put her back there,” someone else said with a snigger. “On her back, preferably.”

  The first voice laughed, a high-pitched nasal sound. “Indeed we can, Naevius, and we will.”

  A hand fastened in her hair and yanked her up. She gritted her teeth and did not, would not cry out. If these were her last moments in this world she would not give her kidnappers the satisfaction of showing one iota of fear.

  Ptolemy XIV Theos Philopator II sat in a gilt chair so large his head barely topped its overly ornate arms. His feet would have dangled well above the floor if someone hadn’t first placed them tenderly on a golden footstool carved in the shape of a hippopotamus. “Ah,” he said, twisting his lips into what he obviously believed was a sneer meant to demonstrate how far above her he was. “The half-breed friend of my mongrel sister.
How nice of you to join us.” He affected a yawn. “Why did we want to soil our air with her presence again, Philo? Linos? Anyone?”

  Cleopatra’s co-ruler was a pudgy adolescent with small muddy brown eyes set unnaturally far apart, so that he gave the impression of never meeting anyone’s gaze straight on. His lips were thick and pursed in a permanent pout. His hair was sparse and he had made a pitiful attempt to comb it forward in the style of Caesar. Thick eye paint extended into points that reached his temples, his cheeks were rouged, his lips and nails were painted gold, and he was clad in a pleated cloth of gold shenti that wrapped him like a mummy from the waist down, leaving the hairless concavity of his chest exposed. The heavy gold uraeus on his brow sat a little off-center, which seemed somehow appropriate.

  Here, Tetisheri thought, here before her sat the product of three centuries of inbreeding, of brother marrying sister and producing progeny that became steadily more unbalanced with every generation. No wonder the Flute Player had gone looking for new blood to invigorate the line of the Ptolemies.

  His stare was oddly incurious for someone who had evidently ordered her kidnapping and he seemed in no hurry for her to speak so she looked around the room. If her life in this world was to be so disastrously shortened, she might as well identify the eyewitnesses so she could give their names to Bast on her journey to the next one. Her hand crept up to the pendant hanging from her neck and closed on it convulsively. She straightened her shoulders and raised her chin, at the same time identifying all available exits and impediments between them and her, estimating the level of resistance she would meet if she tried to flee, calculating what her odds were if she decided to fight. Whatever they were, she would die fighting before she let them lay hands on her and she would do her very best to take some of them with her. Crixus would be so proud.

  It appeared she had interrupted the royal dinner, now coming to its end. There were slaves offering trays of fruit and cheese and honey-glazed pastries to the guests sitting or lying on couches arrayed around the king in two arcs. She herself stood in the space where their ends almost met. There was usually some small entertainment at the end of these affairs and tonight she appeared to be it. How nice.

  “The peel is still on this apple,” Ptolemy said, and slapped away the tray proffered by a slave. The contents went everywhere and the tray skittered across the floor to come to rest a hand’s width from Tetisheri’s left foot. It was enough like a discus that it would do for a projectile at need. “Have him flogged, Linos. I want his back bleeding when next I see him.”

  The slave, a boy of twelve, burst into tears and fell to his knees, and was dragged off by one of the guards. The company barely noticed.

  She might even be able to remove the little monster’s head from his shoulders before they got to her.

  To the right of the king sat three Romans, one older, the other two younger. The elder looked familiar and after a moment she recognized him. He was one of the two who had come into the queen’s presence with Caesar. Not Cotta but the long-faced one, who had looked at the queen with such intent. The two youths with him looked enough like him for her to identify them as his sons. His nose was elevated and his displeasure manifest, which might have had something to do with the honey-roasted fig that had landed in his lap during the king’s temper tantrum.

  To the left of the king was a small group of his advisors. There was Linos the Eunuch, the king’s political advisor. He wore bright blue silk and dark kohl and red carnelian on neck, arms, and feet. Philo was an Alexandrian aristocrat of such high lineage he made Tetisheri’s former mother-in-law look like a liberal, and was head of the faction of nobles that supported Ptolemy and hated Ptolemy’s sister on principal.

  General Thales, known as the new Theodotos, stood at parade rest with his hands clasped behind his back, dressed in a simple linen tunic with a leather belt, wrist guards and sandals, and no jewelry whatever. He had a square, rugged face, currently looking as if it had been used as a model for a tomb carving in Memphis. His expression didn’t change when their eyes met and she made sure that neither did hers, but she did breathe a little easier when she saw him.

  The man standing a little apart from the first three she did not know. He looked Greek and dressed like an Egyptian. His skin seldom saw the sun and his arms and legs were so long he looked like a white, four-legged spider standing upright. His eyes were close set and dark and pitiless and from between them a long, beaked nose protruded like the corvus on a Roman quinquireme.

  Next to the group of counselors Tetisheri recognized Nenwef, sharing a couch with a woman who was definitely not his wife.

  There was one lone Egyptian present. This was a lovely little girl of seven or eight with blue-black skin, a broad nose, wide, flat cheekbones, full lips and a soft cloud of hair that fell down to her waist. She wore a gold collar and nothing else. To the collar was attached a leash, the other end of which was held by the Alexandrian sitting to the Romans’ right. This was Lord Hunefer, Nomarch of Marimda, companion and advisor to Ptolemy XIV, and Tetisheri’s former husband.

  Next to Hunefer was, of course, his mother, Ipwet. A thin woman carrying her weight in heavy gold bracelets and a collar that covered her shoulders, she wore her hair cut straight across her brow in the fashion of the ancient Pharaohs. Which in other circumstances Tetisheri might have found hilarious, since Ipwet claimed to be a descendant of Ptolemy I. Not close enough in blood to be a threat to the current co-rulers, goodness me, no, Ipwet wasn’t that foolish, but not so distant as to not be able to offer up a convincing whiff of royal privilege whenever it came time to pay her bills or her taxes. Not so convincing with Cleopatra in power. It was no surprise to see Ipwet and her son in Ptolemy’s train.

  Ipwet pretended not to see Tetisheri. Tetisheri pretended not to see her right back. Whatever she could expect from her ex-mother-in-law, help was not it.

  The rest in attendance were minor Alexandrian nobles accompanied by wives or one of Caesar’s ex-tarts. Most of them looked as if they had spent a long evening being bored by Ptolemy Theos’ determination to focus all attention on himself and were now looking at her as a relief.

  She herself had yet to speak and she was determined not to unless she was spoken to first. The king was pleased to scowl. She could only hope she would continue to disappoint him.

  “Well?” the king said. “What were you conspiring at this afternoon with that black bitch dressed up like Pharaoh? Tell me and I may yet let you live.” He looked at Linos and Philo. “Is that not generous of me? To make such an offer to a traitor to Alexandria and Egypt? Am I not the kindest and most merciful of all the kings ever to sit on the throne of Egypt?”

  His voice was high and piercing. Theirs were low and deferential.

  “The most kind, O king.”

  “Wisest and most merciful, Ptolemy Theos, Fourteenth of His Name, there is no doubt.”

  “The most cunning and courageous ever to wear the Double Crown.”

  A concurring murmur ran around the room.

  Tetisheri found a bas-relief carving in the molding that lined the walls of the room below the roof and above the wall paintings and studied it. Theseus and the Minotaur, perhaps. Or the rape of Europa, if the sculptor had been far-sighted. Or a misogynist.

  “Speak!” the king said sharply. “What was so important that forced that stinking cunt out of Caesar’s bed?”

  She knew full well she was about to die. Nothing she said would change that outcome, so she stiffened her spine and remained silent.

  The king’s face darkened and she couldn’t help it, she ducked away from the blow she knew was coming from one or both of the guards standing behind her. It fell on her shoulder and almost knocked her off her feet. She caught herself before she fell, straightened her shoulders and went back to studying the molding illustrations. All Greek, of course. No Egyptian gods need apply. Where did this overprivileged brat imagine all his wealth came from? It was something he had never learned and that his sister n
ever forgot.

  A second blow fell across her shoulders, another almost immediately on her back, and then the blows rained thick and fast, catching her shoulders and arms and the sides of her head. Her sight blurred, her ears rang, she tried dropping to the floor and curling into a ball but two more guards came to grasp her by the hands and pull her to her feet, there to hold her so the first two could continue beating her.

  Something that sounded suspiciously like a stamp came from the throne. “Who does this bint think she is! Linos! Tell them to break out the whips! Make her speak! She is not allowed to ignore me! I am her king!”

  There was the sound of a throat clearing. “My king—” Thales, that was. “Perhaps—”

  The blows slowed and Tetisheri began to shift her weight to her right foot as she pulled her arms in and clenched her fists, moving back as she turned to strike. And then the tray, she thought, bringing her left hand up to guard, her right to strike.

  Outside the doors was a clang and a thud, followed by another clang and another thud. There was a low moan. The attention of the room shifted from the disappointing lack of drama in front of them—another slave being beaten, what could be more dull—to the door, which swung invitingly wide. The hard hands grasping Tetisheri’s wrists loosened and fell away. She managed to remain upright, although she was dizzy and nauseous and her shoulders and back ached fiercely.

  Apollodorus strolled in. No, that wasn’t quite accurate, Tetisheri thought. He sauntered.

  Idiot! For a moment she was afraid she had said it out loud. What was he doing here? He would only get them both killed.

  At the same time something in his air of nonchalance made the tight ball of fear in her abdomen ease. He tossed off what might charitably have been called a salute in Ptolemy’s direction and as an afterthought acknowledged being in the presence of the co-sovereign of Alexandria and Egypt with a casual, “Majesty.”