Wrath of the Furies (32 page)

“Surely a man must be with Mithridates and against Rome, or vice versa.”

He turned so that the light revealed his face. He looked neither calculating nor exasperated, but only rather weary. “In the first place, Gordianus, the war perpetrated by Manius Aquillius was illegal and without the authorization of the Roman Senate. A true patriot would oppose such a war; had I been in Rome, I would have spoken out against it. But once hostilities commenced, as a Roman, even a Roman in exile, I could not favor the king's cause over Rome. I did not take up arms or involve myself in espionage for either side. Then I found myself in territory captured by Mithridates. I hoped the king would overlook me, that I would be of no interest to him. But no, the king knew exactly who and where I was, and summoned me to his presence. Perhaps, Gordianus, you've heard about the punishment inflicted by the king on Manius Aquillius, another Roman of consular rank? Yes, by your face I see you have. I feared that a similar fate awaited me. As a Stoic, I prepared myself for death—and a most unseemly death at that.

“But the king is neither a fool nor a fanatic. He knows that not all Romans are the same. I settled in this part of the world because I have so many friends here, far more than I have in Rome. And why is that? Because of my humane conduct and upright dealings when I was a legate here. I stood up for the locals when Roman businessmen and bankers sought to squeeze every denarius from them—the conduct that got me into so much trouble back in Rome. When I entered the throne room, instead of chopping off my head, Mithridates threw his arms around me. He asked me to join his court and to advise him—never on military affairs, mind you, but only on matter of jurisprudence.”

“Jurisprudence?”

“Conquering a kingdom is one thing. Administering it is quite another. Courts must be created. Honest judges must be found. Laws must be drafted.”

“Like the proclamation that all Romans must wear the toga?” I asked. “You seem to be in violation of that decree, Consul.”

Rutilius pursed his lips, but did not respond.

“Or the decree that any Roman in possession of a weapon will be killed on the spot?” I asked.

“Ah, yes. Zeuxidemus told me about today's … unfortunate incident.”

“Very unfortunate indeed for the Roman who had his throat slit, not to mention his starving wife and child, who had to witness such a thing.”

“You would help that man's family, if you could?” asked Rutilius.

“Of course I would.”

“Good. That's why we're here. We all agree that the slaughter of innocents must be prevented.”

“What slaughter? Which innocents?”

Rutilius looked at Samson. “He doesn't know?”

“I'm not sure what Gordianus knows and doesn't know,” said Samson.

“I know the king is planning some sort of ritual. There's to be a human sacrifice, meant to appease…” I had caught Bethesda's superstitious dread, and hesitated to name the Furies aloud.

“We all know to whom the sacrifice will be made,” said Rutilius. “But do you know why the so-called Kindly Ones must be appeased? And not merely appeased, but won over, made to take the side of the king against his victims—”

“
Victims?
” I asked.

The consul cocked his head, not understanding my emphasis on the word.

“You didn't say
enemies,
” I said. “‘Take the side of the king against his enemies'—that would mean the Roman legions. You said
victims.
You're talking about those Romans who've taken sanctuary at the Temple of Artemis. Mithridates intends to kill them.”

Rutilius nodded. “And not only those Romans, Gordianus. In a single day, at a prearranged time, Mithridates plans to slaughter every Roman left in Asia. We are speaking not of thousands, but of many tens of thousands. All at once.”

I had known that something of this nature was afoot, but I had not imagined the scale of it. “How could such a thing be done? Does the king have enough soldiers in every town, every village—”

“The killing will not be done by soldiers,” said Rutilius. “Oh, in some instances, soldiers may lead or initiate the slaughter, and they'll surely be called on to help dispose of the bodies, but most of the killing will be done by ordinary men and women, roused by the leaders of their communities to such a pitch of hatred that they'll take up whatever weapons they possess—stones and sticks, if they have to—and murder every Roman they see. Men, women, children, the old—all of them. The next morning, there won't be a Roman left alive in any part of the kingdom. It will be as if everyone woke up, and the Romans had simply vanished.”

“Except for the blood on the temple steps,” I said. “And the stench of the dead.”

“The blood will have been mopped up. The corpses will have been burned and buried, or taken to sea and dumped for Poseidon to swallow,” said Rutilius.

“Rome will never forgive such a slaughter,” I said. “The Senate and the people will demand vengeance.”

“Vengeance against whom? The killing will have been done not by armies but by ordinary people.”

“Then Rome will take vengeance on the people,” I said.

“And kill every person in Ephesus, and every other city that takes part in a massacre?”

“Yes. Kill or enslave them. Consul, you know that Romans never forgive, and they never forget. How many generations did the war against Carthage last? How many times did old Cato end every speech by saying, ‘Carthage must be destroyed'?”

Rutilius sighed. “I actually heard one of those speeches, when I was a boy.”

“And in the end, Cato got his way, though he didn't live to see it. Carthage
was
destroyed, and all her people slaughtered or sold into slavery. This massacre won't be the end of Roman oppression; it will only be the beginning, because Rome will never stop until every city that takes part is punished. You know what I say is true, Consul. A massacre of the Romans will be a disaster for the people of Ephesus.”

Rutilius bowed his head. “What you say is true, Gordianus. All the more reason that we must do something to stop this massacre.”

“But how?”

“Before the slaughter takes place, Mithridates must seek to appease the Kindly Ones. He will do so by sacrificing the virgin you spoke of, this girl called Freny. But such sacrifices are rare—so rare that the Grand Magus and the Great Megabyzus were at pains to determine exactly how and where it should take place, and were sometimes at odds with each other. The king thought to perform the ritual quickly and be done with it, but there was one delay after another as various requirements had to be met, including the participation of certain ‘witnesses,' such as you. While the ritual was repeatedly put off, planning for the massacre carried on, so that now the king is hard-pressed to offer the sacrifice before the massacres are committed. Only a handful of men across the kingdom know the exact date for the massacres—I do not—but it must be very soon now.”

“So the sacrifice will take place, and poor Freny will die, and then … the massacre of the Romans,” I said. “But how are we to stop any of this from taking place?”

There was a rapping at the door. It was gentle, but it startled me even so.

The consul's face brightened. “Once all of us are here, the situation shall be made clear to you, Gordianus.”

“‘All of us'?”

After an exchange of coded knocks, the consul indicated to Zeuxidemus that he could open the door.

A tall, slender man stepped inside, dressed much like Rutilius in a plain tunic and good shoes. For a moment I didn't recognize him without his yellow robes and headdress. It was none other than the Great Megabyzus. His long, gray-streaked hair was pulled back from his face and tied behind his head. Without his priestly robes and the severe expression that went along with them, he looked quite ordinary. He gave me a faint smile of recognition.

Another man followed him into the room, a graybeard who furtively ducked his head so that I couldn't see his face. At last he looked up, and our eyes met. He looked as if he might faint from astonishment.

It was Antipater.

 

XXIX

Antipater stared at me with his jaw hanging open. Slowly, the deep furrows of his brow turned upward and his gaping mouth formed an uncertain smile.

“Gordianus!” he whispered.

“So the two of you
do
know each other,” remarked the consul, “just as Samson said.”

A part of me longed to embrace Antipater. Instead, I took a step back. In the small room, I could retreat no farther.

“I don't understand,” I said. “What is the Great Megabyzus doing here? Isn't he the very man we're hiding from?”

“Perhaps I should speak,” said Samson, “since it was I who brought us all together. And I'm the only one here who knows the true name of everyone in the room.”

The six of us stood roughly in a circle. I looked from face to face, beginning with Samson to my left hand, and then to Zeuxidemus, who stood closest to the door, then to the newcomers Antipater and the Great Megabyzus, and finally to Rutilius.

The Great Megabyzus flashed a wry smile. “Even I have a name. I suppose, in these circumstance, I might as well use it. When I take off my robes and headdress, my family and friends call me Kysanias.”

Samson gave Kysanias a respectful nod. “Except for me, every man here, in one role or another, will take part in the sacrifice at the Grove of the Furies—yes, let's use their true name, and no more talk of ‘Kindly Ones.' This long-delayed sacrifice will take place…?”

“Tomorrow night, an hour after sundown,” said Kysanias.

Samson nodded. “If the sacrifice goes well, then the massacre of the Romans will follow very soon thereafter. We assume that the date for the massacre has already been set, since such a thing must necessarily require a great deal of planning. No one in this room knows the exact date—not even Kysanias—but we know it must be very soon. Therefore—”

Antipater cleared his throat. In a thin, rasping voice, he said, “I believe that I know the date.”

I was so pleased to hear him speak that I hardly heard what he said. The sound of his voice made me smile. Antipater possessed a highly trained voice, as skilled as that of any orator or actor, capable of many inflections, for a great poet must be able to speak in the voice of a young girl or an old crone or a heroic warrior, or even a god, and no poet was a more versatile reciter than Antipater. Yet, ironically, his own voice, his normal speaking voice, was rather high and not entirely pleasing to the ear. Still, just to hear it made my heart beat faster. No matter how strange the circumstances, I was at last gazing at Antipater in the flesh and could see that he was indeed alive, if not looking as well as I had hoped. Was it the harsh light of the lamps, casting shadows across his furrowed face, that made him look so haggard?

It was only from the startled reactions of all the others that I realized what Antipater had just said. I stared at him as I spoke. “Teacher, is this true? You know the date of the massacre?”

He stared back at me. Surrounded by the others, we could hardly react to the sight of each other in a normal way, and certainly could not say all that needed to be said. When Antipater spoke, I felt like laughing and crying at once, for here was the eloquent poet, never at a loss for words, seeming to stumble over every sentence.

“It was in the house of Eutropius … I've been staying there … instead of the palace—but the king would visit … talk of the killings to come … and Eutropius was given a part to play, you see, whether he liked it or not … one of the few men in all of Ephesus to be told … and now this awful news about that poor slave girl from his house! How many times did Freny wait upon me, and how many times did I look at her beaming young face and take heart, despite my troubles? But never mind that—yes, I know the date, for I happened to overhear it—oh! I have hardly been able to sleep since then…”

Rutilius shuddered with frustration. “Who
is
this jabbering fellow?”

“To the royal court,” said Samson, “he was introduced as Zoticus of Zeugma, a little-known poet and retired tutor.”

“Yes, yes,” said the consul, “I've seen him across the room at royal banquets, but who
is
he, and why is he here?” Zeuxidemus and Kysanias also looked interested in hearing the answer.

Samson looked to me and cocked an eyebrow.

I cleared my throat. “This man … this man was my tutor when I was a boy, back in Rome. I was very lucky to receive instruction from him. My father could never have afforded to pay his usual fees. There was some bond of friendship between the two of them … and a bond also grew between us, between pupil and teacher. So strong a bond that when he did a most unusual thing, and pretended to be dead—being so bold as to attend his own funeral!—I went along with the deception, and so did my father. That is how he came to take the name Zoticus of Zeugma.”

“So this is the man with whom you saw the Seven Wonders?” asked Rutilius.

“Yes. We traveled many miles, across seas and forests and deserts, and saw many things. We met many people. But while I was distracted by beauty and pleasure, Zoticus … Zoticus was up to something else. He was acting as a messenger and spy for King Mithridates. And I never knew—until we parted ways in Alexandria. That was three years ago. Not a word did I hear from him, or about him, after that—no letter, no news. Until just a few days ago, when a document arrived in Alexandria addressed to me. A piece of parchment taken from some larger document—an excerpt from a sort of diary, perhaps.…”

Antipater made a fist and put it to his mouth. “The missing page!” he said. “It was sent to you! But by whom? And how did they know where to reach you? Oh, dear—the letter I kept writing and never sending, addressed to you. They must have copied your name and the banker's address from that.” He seemed on the verge of tears.