Wrath of the Furies, page 30
It was a muffled cry. “Help me!”
“Where is it coming from?” I whispered.
“From the trench over there,” said Samson. “Here, help me.”
I shuddered at the thought of digging through corpses. Then Antipater, standing next to me, fell to his knees. He was clutching his chest.
I dropped to my knees beside him. “Teacher, what’s wrong?”
His face was ashen. He grimaced.
I heard the muffled cry again, but louder now, as Samson, working alone, uncovered the man who was calling for help. As I continued to stare at Antipater, wondering what was wrong with him, the man stumbled out of the trench. I glanced at his filthy, bloodstained toga, then saw his face.
“Chaeremon of Nysa!” I whispered.
Antipater continued to grimace and clutch his chest. He gasped. “This is the end of me!”
“No, Teacher!” I whispered.
“Give this man my tunic.”
“What are you saying, Teacher?”
“He can’t be seen wearing that toga. Give him my clothing. Cover me with his toga … and leave me here.”
“No, Teacher, you’re coming with us!” I said, with a catch in my throat.
“Do you not see, Gordianus? The Fates have given me a last chance … to do something worthwhile. Give this man my clothing … so that he may go with you safely. And take for yourself … the pages I carry with me.”
“What pages?”
He struggled to reach inside his tunic. He pulled out a leather cylinder.
“But, Teacher, I can’t leave you here.”
He fell to his side and began to gasp for breath. I wept.
“What does it matter … where my body lies?” he said, his speech slurred as if he were drunk. I put my ear to his mouth and strained to hear him. “Let them bury me here … with the Romans. Do I not already have … a funeral monument … in Rome … from the first time I died?” He made a sound that might have been a laugh, then a long sigh issued from his throat, and then there was silence.
While I stood by, trembling and fighting back tears, Samson removed Antipater’s tunic and gave it to Chaeremon. The man appeared to be unscathed, despite the bloodstains I had seen on his toga, but he was badly shaken. He removed his toga and laid it over Antipater, like a shroud.
Chaeremon had just finished putting on Antipater’s tunic when we heard footsteps approaching. Out of the mist, the troop of soldiers reappeared.
Their captain looked at us for a moment, then laughed. “You lot, again! This fog is so thick, either you’re walking in circles or we are!” He scrutinized us more closely, and his eyes came to rest on Chaeremon. Did he remember Antipater’s face, and realize that someone new had been added to our party? Or did he simply see an old man in a tunic?
At last he took his eyes off Chaeremon and waved to his men to keep walking. “Be on your way,” he said to us. “May the goddess guide you safely though this infernal fog!”
Thus did the gift of his tunic, the final act of Antipater, save the life of Chaeremon of Nysa, a loyal friend of Rome, and the only known survivor of the Ephesian massacre.
We hurried on, leaving Antipater behind.
We crossed the misty landscape. We saw no more bodies, and encountered no more soldiers. At last we came to the river, where a boat was anchored alongside a short pier.
Samson conferred with the captain, then told us there would be a brief delay while the ship was made ready to sail.
Still stunned by the death of Antipater, I sat on the pier with my legs dangling over the side, my feet not quite touching the water. A blanket of swirling fog floated a few feet above the river. The sight was strangely beautiful.
I opened the capsa Antipater had given me. The first piece of parchment I pulled out happened to be the very last he had written. Seeing my name, my eyes fell on the sentence, I give these words to you, Gordianus.
I looked through the other pieces of parchment. Some pages appeared to be missing. From my tunic I pulled out the piece that had been sent to me. I found the place where it belonged.
Blinking back tears, I read the final entry of his diary. My mind was slow, so that I had to read some sentences more than once to make sense of them. But no matter how many times I read it, his idea that Monime had sent the stolen page to me—to lure me to Ephesus as part of some plot to bring down Antipater—made no sense. Surely the queen could have done away with Antipater more easily than that, given the power she wielded in the royal household.
As I pondered the mystery—who sent the page to me, and why?—another solution occurred to me. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Of course, I would never be able to prove it.…
And then, out of the mist—literally—came the embodiment of my conjecture. I thought I must be hallucinating, until Samson, standing nearby on the pier, gave a start.
“Who are those three?” he asked in a low voice. “And what in Hades are they doing here?”
“I know who they are,” I said, quickly rolling the pages and slipping them back into the capsa as I stood up. “The one in the middle, at least … because I was just thinking about him.”
Even without his cobra crown, I recognized young Prince Ptolemy. He was dressed in a common tunic, as were his two servants, but his shoes were exquisite. Each of the servants carried a heavy-looking sack slung over his shoulder. The prince smiled a bit uncertainly as he stepped onto the pier. Looking behind me, I saw that Bethesda and the others had drawn closer together, and that Samson stood before them, holding a knife in one hand.
“You may put aside that weapon,” said the prince quietly. When Samson didn’t respond, his voice became stern. “I have asked you nicely. Now, as a prince of Egypt, I order you to do so. Are you not an Alexandrian, subject to the House of Ptolemy?”
Samson hesitated for a moment, then put away his knife. “What are you doing here, Your Majesty?”
“I’ve come to sail away with you.”
Samson cocked his head. “But how…?”
“I think I know how the prince followed us here,” I said. “These two servants are the same two who were assigned by Monime to look after Antipater. Am I right?”
“They are!” said Freny. “I recognize them both.”
“You are indeed correct … Gordianus of Rome,” said Prince Ptolemy.
“But their true loyalty is to you.”
The prince nodded.
“And despite Antipater’s attempts to elude them,” I said, “one or the other of them never let Antipater out of his sight. Thus you knew where Antipater went, when he fled the house of Eutropius. And you knew that last night he was in the Temple of Artemis. And this morning, by some feat of stealth, you managed to follow Antipater and the rest of us through the mist.”
He nodded again. “And at a distance I witnessed his death. Alas! The world has lost a great poet. I had hoped your old tutor would be with us on this journey, so that he might amuse us with his verses.”
“But how is it that you’re free to go where you wish?” asked Samson. “The king never allows you to leave the palace.”
“The whole city, including the palace, has been in an uproar, day and night, ever since the massacre commenced. I took advantage of all the confusion to slip quietly away. I had help to do so; these two are not the only servants in Mithridates’s household who are secretly loyal to the House of Ptolemy. Still, even with my loyal minions covering for me, sooner or later the queen will realize that I’ve gone, so I suggest we cast off at once.”
“Taking you with us was not in my plans,” said Samson.
“If it’s payment you require, that can be arranged.” The prince gestured to the sacks carried by his two servants. “I managed to bring along a few personal items—rings and bracelets and other such trinkets.”
“I wouldn’t consider taking payment from you,” said Samson.
“You show wisdom. One day, I shall sit on the throne of Egypt, and when that happens, I shall not forget those who helped me in my time of tribulation.”
Without his fancy robes and ruby-eyed cobra crown, Ptolemy looked no different from any other plump-cheeked teenager. It was hard to imagine him ruling Egypt, but stranger things had happened.
“There’s something I want to know,” I said. “Was it you who sent me that page from Antipater’s diary?”
He nodded. “After my servants showed me the page, I told them to send it to you.”
“Why?”
“I thought it might lure you here, Gordianus of Rome. And so it did.”
“For what purpose?”
The prince sighed. “Luring you here was only one of many, many small schemes I’ve hatched in the days since I was captured. All the other schemes came to nothing, but this one…” He smiled. “It so happened that these two servants, assigned by Monime to spy on Antipater, were actually loyal to me—my spies, if you will. They secretly read his diary and reported back to me. It was clear that Antipater had lost enthusiasm for the cause of Mithridates, and that he especially disliked Monime. How might his discontent be turned to my advantage? When I discovered that Antipater had a young protégé in Egypt—a Roman no less—my interest was further piqued. What mischief might occur if I could lure that young Roman to Ephesus, and reunite him with the disgruntled poet?”
“You merely wanted to make mischief?”
“Mischief creates opportunity! When a prince finds himself without power, making mischief and sowing discord may be the best he can do, along with biding his time. Many a Ptolemy has learned that lesson over the centuries. So—how to bring Gordianus of Rome to Ephesus? I couldn’t write to you myself—any such letter might be intercepted—but it occurred to me that that particular page from the diary might do the trick. And so it did. And the mischief created has borne fruit beyond my wildest expectations—for here am I, and there is the ship to take me away from this infernal place.”
I thought about this, and looked at the capsa in my hand. “Other pages from the diary seem to be missing. Antipater himself noticed.”
“Yes, there were certain comments he made about Egyptian politics—about my father and uncle, and even about myself—that I prefer no one should read. So I had those pages destroyed—as I suggest you do with the pages that remain. One never knows what further mischief they might spawn.”
I looked at the others on the pier, including Freny. “How did Monime learn of the king’s attraction to Freny—from the two servants watching Antipater?”
“Yes. They had to report something back to the queen, to make a pretense of being her spies in the household. A tidbit like that seemed harmless enough.”
“Yet it almost got poor Freny killed!”
He nodded. “But you managed to prevent that. What a show you all put on the other night! Mithridates almost wet himself, and his vile bitch of a queen nearly fainted from terror.”
“I thought you liked Monime.”
“Like her?” He made an ugly face. “I loathe her! Oh, yes, I made a pretense of being her crony, her comrade, her cozy confidant—all the while trembling inside with disgust. She and her father are the worst sort of upstarts, crude commoners pretending to be royal. They’re nobodies, with no manners and no breeding. Cousin Mithridates is bad enough, but Monime…” He made a retching sound.
The captain called to Samson that the boat was ready to sail.
Samson looked at the prince for a long moment, then stepped aside and indicated that the rest of us should do likewise, so that Ptolemy could board first. As he walked up the pier, from somewhere in his tunic the prince produced his cobra crown and fitted it on his head. A shaft of sunlight pierced the mist and fell upon the sparkling ruby eyes.
Samson boarded the vessel. He helped Chaeremon step aboard. I boarded next, then helped Bethesda onto the ship.
On the pier, with much weeping, Anthea and Amestris said their last farewells to Freny. At last she came aboard, and the ship cast off. The two women stood on the pier, waving. I gazed at the face of Amestris for as long as I could. Then the fog thickened, and I saw only two spots of yellow that gradually disappeared in the mist.
XXXVI
“Will we stop at Rhodes?” I asked.
“That was my plan,” said Samson, “but according to my informants in Ephesus, the king’s navy has already blockaded the island. We’ll have to steer well clear of Rhodes.”
We were a day out of Ephesus, sailing on the open sea under a cloudless sky. Freny and Bethesda were nearby, dozing under the warm sun. Prince Ptolemy, stricken by seasickness despite the calm waters, was somewhere belowdecks, attended by his two servants. Chaeremon, still wearing Antipater’s tunic, stood at the prow, gazing at the sea.
“So there’ll be no reunion for Chaeremon and his two sons on Rhodes?”
“Not yet.”
“Will we head straight for Alexandria, then?” That was my hope.
Samson shook his head. “I’m not sure about that. Amestris asked me to take Freny to Tyre. And I have some business in Jerusalem. To get there, we would land at Joppa.”
“Isn’t that where Perseus rescued Andromeda from the sea monster?”
“So the Greeks say.”
I stared at the sea for a while. “Why go to Jerusalem? I thought you were an Alexandrian Jew.”
“A Jew is a Jew, Gordianus. Every Jew has a reason to visit Jerusalem.”
“What is your reason?” Once again I realized how little I knew of Samson’s true agenda.
“I want to make an offering at the Temple.”
“Which one?”
“There is only one Temple.”
“What sort of offering? One of those precious items you retrieved from the stolen treasury?”
“Perhaps.” He fingered the hem of the old cloak he insisted on wearing. “Did I ever tell you that one of my ancestors fought for Alexander the Great?”
“No. I wasn’t aware there were Jews in Alexander’s army.”
“Oh, yes. Alexander himself visited Jerusalem, and my ancestor fought for him all the way to India and back.”
We stared at the sea.
“What was in that capsa Antipater gave you?” asked Samson. “Some final poems from the world’s greatest poet?”
“No. There were no poems. Only a sort of diary.”
“Still, the world might want to read it. There must be an audience for anything that came from the hand of Antipater of Sidon. You could hire scribes to copy it, and sell copies to rich Romans who like to appear cultured. I’m sure the Library at Alexandria would want a copy.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think it would enhance Antipater’s reputation. Also, he makes references to people and events that might yet do harm to someone, as this war between Mithridates and Rome continues. No, I think Antipater’s diary must remain a secret—though it would be hard for me to burn it, as he asked me to. It’s too precious to me.”
“By all means, don’t burn it! So many precious things are lost to fire, and decay, and flood, and even to hungry insects.” Samson smiled. “I have a secret, too.”
“You, Samson? Imagine that!”
“Now that we’re safely away from Ephesus, on the open sea, where no one can overhear, I think I shall tell you.”
“Please do.”
“But you must promise not to tell Prince Ptolemy.”
“I promise.”
He paused for a long moment. “This cloak that I’m wearing, the one that came from the treasury of the Alexandrian Jews at Cos…”
“Yes, what about that smelly old thing?” I asked, though to be fair, the fresh sea air had done much to clear away the musty odor.
“This is the cloak of Alexander the Great.”
Samson looked at me, expecting a response, but I only stared back at him, speechless.
“It was for this that I traveled to Ephesus,” he went on, “so that the cloak would not be claimed by Mithridates, or lost, or thrown away.”
I frowned. “But … Mithridates was wearing the cloak of Alexander when we saw him in the Grove of the Furies. He found it in the treasury of the Ptolemies at Cos.”
Samson shook his head. “No, that cloak is a fake. A decoy. This is the true cloak.”
I shook my head. “That can’t be right. After he died, the cloak of Alexander was claimed by his general Ptolemy, who became king of Egypt and handed it down to his descendants.”
“True enough, but a few generations back, one of the Ptolemies became so short of money that he sold the cloak to the Jews of Alexandria. The sale was kept secret. The king had a replica made, and put it in the Egyptian royal treasury at Cos, even as the real cloak was stored in the Jewish treasury there. When Mithridates laid his hands on both treasuries, we thought the cloak was surely lost. Then we realized he was making a show of wearing the false cloak, which meant the real cloak might still be among the other items from the Jewish treasury. To anyone who didn’t know what it was, the cloak might appear worthless. It might even be tossed out with the rubbish. We had to save the cloak of Alexander the Great. And I did!”
Samson slipped it from his shoulders and held it aloft, so that it fluttered in the gentle sea breeze.
I looked at the thing in wonder. Presumably it had once been purple, but had faded to a dull, reddish brown. It looked old and ugly, whereas the cloak Mithridates had worn, though old, had a certain austere beauty. Why was one cloak any more valuable or sacred than the other, simply because it had touched the person of a certain long-dead mortal?
And what did it mean, that my travels with Antipater had taken me to the Seven Wonders spread across Alexander’s empire, and that I had been living in the city named for him, and that the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great had played such a large role in my adventure with the raiders of the Nile—and now, without my knowing it, the cloak of Alexander had played a role in this episode? For without Samson, whose true mission was to reclaim the cloak, my trip to Ephesus would surely have turned out very differently. I seemed to be living somehow in the shadow of Alexander the Great.
Bethesda and Freny saw the cloak held aloft. Wondering what Samson was up to, they came to join us.
