by Peter Tonkin
‘Sit up, lad, it won’t be long ‘til we’re back,’ said Quintus from close to his right shoulder. ‘We’ll be at Ashkelon soon enough. Then you can sleep all you want.’
‘With Puella to keep you warm,’ added Ferrata, close to his left.
Artemidorus realised that they were riding so close to him in case it was his turn to topple from his mount. He urged his horse into a trot and then into a canter, burning to get back to Triton and a warm bed – whether Puella was in it or not.
Then he realised that underneath his weariness, a kind of elation was building. He had pulled off something amazing. Cassius was on the point of marching north to meet Brutus at Sardis. Egypt had been saved from invasion. In spite of the dire warning from Cassius he carried in his dispatch pouch, Cleopatra was safe for the time-being, at least. Safe with time – and room – to build the navy Antony was asking for – to build it and send it to guard his supply lines. So Antony’s plans would be furthered as well. With Cleopatra’s navy to protect him he could move from Brundisium to Dyrrhachium whenever the winds permitted. And, if Cleopatra’s Egyptian admiral could overcome Cassius’ admirals, then she could reverse the situation and blockade any ports Brutus and Cassius were hoping to ship supplies through. Not only that, but if Herod was as good as his word and his Parthian merchants came through with the promised grain, Egypt’s famine would soon be at an end. Then it only needed the Nile to inundate and all would be well again. Better than that – Brutus’ and Cassius’ abrupt and arrogant communications would ensure that Cleopatra would support Antony at whatever cost.
‘That’s better, lad,’ said Quintus approvingly and Artemidorus realised he was sitting straight in the saddle, buoyed up by elation. And, to be fair, by the amazing fact that he had come safely through a situation that he had thought more than once would end in a protracted and agonising death.
Sitting tall in the saddle, therefore, with his companions on either side, Artemidorus rode into Ashkelon and down to the docks where Triton and a good sleep awaited.
Except that she didn’t.
The three legionaries reined to a stop on the quayside. All the ships from this morning were still in place, but Triton was gone. Artemidorus looked around in simple disbelief. Three familiar figures detached themselves from the bustle of the dockside. Kyros, Notus and Crinas came towards them. Artemidorus swung himself round and slid off his horse. ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded. ‘Where’s Triton?’
‘Gone,’ said Crinas gently. ‘When Puella told User about Brutus selling survivors from Xanthus at the slave market in Delos, he put us all ashore...’
‘With all our possessions and yours as well,’ added Kyros. ‘Everything we brought from Rome and still had with us it’s all here at the taberna we found.’
‘Right...’ Artemidorus’ mind was trying to weigh the alternatives presented by this unexpected news, which, he realised, he should have expected in any case, like the presence of Cassius’ brother in his camp. But it was like trying to run through deep water. His mind just would not work fast enough. ‘So we’re all here,’ he said. ‘With all of our impedimenta kit. And User has gone with Triton. To look for his family in Delos.’
Notus and Kyros exchanged a glance. ‘Well, not all of us,’ said Crinas. ‘We’re not all here.’
‘Not Furius. Yes I know. But do we have his stuff? Did User send it off as well? I’ll return it to his family if I can...’
‘We didn’t mean Furius,’ said Kyros.
‘We meant Puella,’ said Crinas. ‘Puella stayed on Triton with User. She’s gone with him.’
*
Artemidorus was drunk. He was by no means alone in this. The remainder of his contubernium were gathered around him in various states of inebriation. Only Crinas was sober. They were packed round a table in the rearmost corner of Ashkelon’s foremost taberna, where they planned to spend the night. Everything unloaded from Triton was in various rooms upstairs – including what was left of Antony’s gold, easily enough to pay for their accommodation tonight and passage to Alexandria tomorrow.
In the mean-time, the spy was receiving a range of sympathy and advice, most of which was utterly useless.
‘Fair enough you’ve lost her,’ said Quintus. ‘But the point is you had her to lose in the first place. One of the most beautiful women in the Republic and she was yours.’
‘Like that bitch Cyanea,’ added Kyros, ‘stunningly beautiful, madly in love with you, but treacherous in the end. Giving all our secrets to Minucius Basilus and the conspirators; if she hadn’t betrayed us Divus Julius would still be alive.’
‘Mind you,’ added Hercules, who was growing maudlin, ‘throwing her naked to a rioting mob was maybe taking revenge a little far. Especially as she escaped.’
‘And she’s still out there somewhere,’ added Kyros shivering, ‘with the money she stole from Basilus and Trebonius – both of whom met the most horrific ends I can imagine – plotting her revenge on you...’ he shivered again and glanced around as though Cyanea, the human Fury, was somewhere close behind him.
‘Fuck,’ said Ferrata. ‘All this looking back and weeping over spilt wine is a waste of time. [ES1]You just have to get Puella out of your system. What you need to do is this. When we get to Alexandria and after we’ve reported to Cleopatra, go down to the slave market there. Find a girl who reminds you of Puella. Buy her. Screw her brains out then beat the shit out of her. Beat her to death if you like – she’s only a possession after all. It would be as if you smashed this cup in your rage. Then you’ll be over her, back on form and ready to move on. None of this Achilleus shit, though. No sulking in your tent because your girl’s gone off with someone else.’
‘And anyway, just think,’ said Crinas reasonably. ‘What if User finds his family on Delos? What’s he going to do? Take two wives? A wife and a mistress? I don’t know her as well as the rest of you, but it seems to me that Puella would never put up with a situation like that. If User finds his family, Puella will probably come looking for you.’
‘I’d never take her back, though!’ snarled Artemidorus. ‘Never!’
‘Decide that at the time, Septem,’ suggested the physician gently.
‘Besides, how in Jupiter’s name would she find me?’
‘That’s the easy part,’ said Crinas. ‘All she has to do is find Mark Antony, and that’s the simplest thing in the world. Everyone always seems to know where Antony is. And even if you’re not there with him, Antony will know where you are.’
‘That’s true,’ said Quintus. ‘Wherever the hell you are, the chances are Antony or Tribune Enobarbus will have sent you there in the first place.’
XVII: Hecate
i
Artemidorus looked at the woman with utter astonishment. A wave of almost uncontrollable anger swept over him. He had supposed Ferrata to have forgotten his plan to remove Puella from his thoughts long ago. But apparently not. He had bought and brought a slave to be raped and beaten to death – but at the moment it was Ferrata he wished to beat rather than the woman.
She stood inside the door of his private chamber in Cleopatra’s island palace, and the one-eyed legionary stood close behind her. Artemidorus slowly rose from his seat at the work desk, which was piled with papyrus scrolls on which he had been recording the numbers and types of vessels in Cleopatra’s burgeoning navy. He turned, to get a better look at his two unexpected visitors, shaking with rage.
Ferrata wore an expression of pride. The woman stood with downcast eyes clothed in little more than a rough woven sack. Artemidorus fought to calm himself, aware the gesture was meant in friendship and arose out of concern for his short temper and dark mood, both of which had worsened during the weeks since their return. He was self-aware enough to see that he felt betrayed, alone, trapped by Cleopatra’s decision that he should wait until her fleet was ready before returning to Rome and Antony. A decision rendered unanswerable by the information brought in by her spy ships.
‘Yes, Admiral Ahe
nobarbus has moved northward with the majority of Cassius’ navy,’ she explained softly, feeling his frustration and speaking a friend rather than queen or goddess. ‘But Cassius is no fool. He has ordered Admiral Murcus to wait with a fleet of more than fifty triremes and quadriremes. There seems to be an entire legion aboard. And they are all waiting to face us when we sail north and slow us if he cannot stop us. I am informed they are anchored off Cape Taenarum the southernmost point of Greece, waiting for anyone heading into the waters separating Italy and Macedonia.’
At least he won’t have stopped User and Puella getting to Delos, he thought, as Cleopatra continued with her briefing. He’s too far west and north. Halys will have escaped with Brutus’ gold as well. Neither thought gave him any pleasure or relief from his sense of anger and betrayal. Nothing did, in fact.
*
‘She’s nothing like Puella, Ferrata.’ For a start, he thought bitterly, her skin was far darker – darker even than User’s. The only slaves he had seen as dark-skinned as this were those he had glimpsed following the camel trains of the traders who crossed the Great Sand Sea and brought goods from afar.
‘Beautiful ones are expensive,’ Ferrata was in no way abashed. ‘Especially the black-skinned ones.’
‘So you got this woman at reduced price?’ the outrage surged again, bringing beads of perspiration to his upper lip.
Ferrata’s expression became sheepish. ‘Well if you were going to do what we discussed it seemed pointless buying an expensive one.’
‘What is your name?’ he asked the slave in Greek. When there was no reply he tried again in Latin. She remained silent, apparently not understanding either language, or, perhaps, frightened by the snarl beneath his words.
‘In the market they called her Magissa, Striga, Witch,’ said Ferrata helpfully.
Artemidorus smothered a sigh of frustration. ‘Is that why she was cheap? Because she’s a witch? Did anyone at the Agora explain?’
‘She may have murdered her last master.’ Ferrata shrugged as though the accusation meant nothing.
‘Really! And she’s still alive?’ The rage and frustration eased under the weight of surprise.
Artemidorus studied her face, looking for signs of murderous evil. Her hair was short and tightly curled. Her forehead broad, her brows delicate. Her eyes, currently downcast, were slightly protuberant but large and fringed with extravagant lashes. Her cheekbones were sharp, leading back to neat ears that sat tight to her head. Her nose was straight, her nostrils broad. Her lips were full but defined and pushed forward in a way that made him think that her teeth would be large and angled slightly outward. Her chin was determined. Dimpled. Her neck long, making the spy think of the herons that flocked to the delta.
‘And the dead master?’ he enquired more calmly.
‘Some Roman patrician,’ answered Ferrata dismissively. ‘Set up home here because of the fleshpots and gambling dens out in Canopus City apparently. Wanted more excitement than even Rome could offer...’
‘Did he at least have a name?’
‘Titus Volumnius Elva by all accounts.’
‘I see. But the woman appears not to have a name.’
‘Like I told you, Septem, Striga. Or Magissa if you want to stick with Greek.’
‘Striga,’ he said quietly in Latin, fixing the woman with an intense stare as he addressed her. The snarl of anger was gone from his tone now, but it was still abrupt. ‘I cannot call you Witch, even if others do. Shall we settle for the meantime on the Goddess of magic? Would you prefer Trivia or Hecate?’ She glanced up, with no sign of understanding on her face and met his gaze. Her dark brown eyes were flecked with gold, like those of a hawk. She hooded them again.
‘She was spared execution and sold on the insistence of her dead owner’s widow and his son – who inherit everything, apparently, and that adds to a considerable fortune even after all Titus Elva senior’s years of gambling and whoring,’ Ferrata was explaining. ‘Anyway, it’s only a rumour – nothing certain. And she’s not so bad to look at either.’ Ferrata unloosened the knots at the shoulders of the shapeless bag of material the woman was wearing, and it slid to the ground.
ii
She had been depilated and oiled ready for sale, the shine on her skin helping to define her body, which was in some ways the opposite of Puella’s. Where his lost lover had been lithe, with the powerful muscularity of a black panther, this woman was square and solid, more like a bear from the Germanian forests in the far north. Broad shoulders led to strong, sinewy arms that ended in big square hands. The long neck led to a flat chest – her breasts mere extensions of her pectoral muscles. The aureolae large and dark, the nipples pointed. Her stomach was flat with not a sign of fat between skin and muscle. The nakedness of her belly showed that she had been circumcised, which the Greek spy found disturbingly shocking. He knew that Egyptian and Jewish boys were circumcised – and had heard rumours of the practice being inflicted on some Egyptian girls. But he had never come across a woman who had been maimed in this way before. Below the mutilated genitals were solid, muscular legs that would have done credit to a gladiator; a cestus-armed pugil boxer perhaps. Broad feet planted solidly, a little apart, as though she was about to start a fight to the death.
Seeing where his friend’s gaze was directed, Ferrata span the silent woman round. Artemidorus clenched his teeth. The skin of her back was in many ways also a terrible counterpart for her wounded genitalia. It was ridged with the scars of whip-lashes that reached from the nape of her neck down past the dimples above her buttocks, many of them old but some new. And there was the mark of a recent brand, which suggested that the woman had been subject to something like the Roman legal system looking into the death of her late master – where slaves had to be tortured before they gave evidence. But that did not explain the older whip-marks.
Either this woman was dreadfully disobedient, self-destructively prone to running away, or her master Titus Volumnius Elva derived gratification from inflicting pain on others. He had known several men like this. Notably, the utterly depraved Minucius Basilus who had finally gone too far with his mutilations and been chopped to pieces by his slaves. But not before he had made Artemidorus’ previous lover Cyanea reveal the details of their plot to counter the plans of Brutus and Cassius and to keep Divus Julius alive on the Ides. All in all, she aroused neither desire nor thirst for revenge in him. And yet, courtesy of Ferrata, she was his. Body and spirit.
‘You may dress,’ he said in Latin. She stooped to obey then froze. Her hawk’s eyes flashed again. She was angry at herself for showing that she understood him. Interesting, he thought. In the absence of anything sexual, there might still be something here after all – a game of wits, the taming of a wild and abused creature – like Alexander with his great steed Bucephalus.
*
So Ferrata’s gesture had an immediate effect – but not in the way the legionary had intended. For the last few weeks Artemidorus had divided his time between his chamber where his scrolls were and the Royal Dockyards where the subjects of his lists were being assembled, adapted or built from the keel up. Not that many of the great ships had a keel at all.
Having delivered Cassius’ and Herod’s messages to Cleopatra, and received her orders in turn, he avoided the court – as far as was possible in a palace. The only time he went into the city was to visit User’s brother and tell him what had happened in Ashkelon. Hardly surprisingly, there was no word of or from User or Puella. But User’s brother promised to pass on any news he got as soon as he could. Artemidorus returned to his bitter isolation in the island palace.
Cleopatra made it easier for him to avoid the distracting bustle of the court by moving back to her palace on the mainland – where she had easy access to the academics in the Musaeum and the Library, who were put to work designing the great vessels that the shipwrights ended up building. The island palace was more convenient to the docks so that was where Artemidorus and his contubernium remained. The centurion
more and more isolated and bitter as time passed, the contubernium bored, inactive, waiting only for orders.
But the arrival of the woman began a series of changes. Like a new parent with a baby, Artemidorus found she filled his time – and thoughts – more than he could have expected. Right from the start, he tried to think of a name for her. Though Striga lingered in his memory he settled on Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft.
He was lucky in that Cleopatra often sent him messages or demanded updates and her messengers tended to be either Hunefer or Charmian. Hunefer had been reinstated, promoted, and rewarded for his services with a new suit of parade armour made from the toughened hide of a black Nile crocodile, which not only looked spectacular but was surprisingly robust. Even Quintus was a little jealous.
The day Ferrata gave him Hecate, however, the messenger was Charmian, and after they had looked over his records and decided which should be taken to the Queen, he also handed over his taciturn slave, asking that she be fed, bathed and clothed. And so he learned that even here the slave who – rumour had it – murdered the abusive Titus Elva with untraceable poisons at the request of his brutalised wife and bullied son, had something of a reputation.
‘You should lock her up at night,’ said Charmian as she returned the silent woman washed, fed and dressed – uneasily, almost uncomfortably – in a range of sensuous cloths and colours that would have eclipsed a peacock’s tail. ‘The gods know what she might do to you as you sleep.’
‘We’ll see,’ he said.
iii
He kept her with him from that moment on. Although the attire of one of Cleopatra’s handmaidens did nothing to disguise the muscularity of her square body, it seemed to gain her automatic acceptance wherever she went – as Artemidorus discovered at once. They went down the palace steps to the island’s quayside together. She seemed to lose nothing of her firm stance even when she stepped into the skiff that would take them through the Royal Harbour to the Dockyards. The warm breeze of an Alexandrian spring day moulded the diaphanous silks and cottons she was wearing to her, leaving almost nothing to the imagination. Even so, none of the oarsmen gave her a second glance.
