Ancient World 02 - Raiders of the Nile (42 page)

I looked from father to son, from brother to sister, from daughter to father. I shook my head. “So it came to pass that Artemon, without knowing it, attempted to kidnap his own sister and demand ransom from his own father!”

All eyes turned to Artemon, who stared back at us defiantly. “The idea for the kidnapping began with the Jackal—”

“The man your sister knows as Lykos,” I said.

Axiothea raised her eyebrows. “Lykos the artificer?”

The king frowned and looked at Zenon, who explained in a whisper, “The man with a white stripe in his hair.”

The king nodded. “Ah yes, that fellow.”

“Very well, I’ll call him Lykos, if you prefer,” said Artemon. “On a visit to the Cuckoo’s Nest, he told me there was a beautiful girl in his Alexandrian mime troupe, called Axiothea—a name that meant nothing to me. Lykos said this girl had made herself the lover of a famously wealthy merchant called Tafhapy—a name I knew all too well, and despised. When Lykos suggested that we kidnap this actress and demand a ransom from her rich lover—never guessing that Tafhapy was secretly my father—I readily agreed. The money meant nothing to me, but the chance to subject the man I hated most in the world to a bit of misery—that was irresistible. Lykos arranged the kidnapping and hired the henchmen—who obviously took the wrong girl!” Artemon stared at Bethesda, who pressed herself close to me. “Now I understand why Tafhapy never responded to the ransom notes, and why you, Roman, came secretly looking for the girl.” He sighed and shut his eyes. “If only the kidnappers had taken the girl they were supposed to take—if only they had brought Artemisia to the Cuckoo’s Nest—I would have been reunited with my long-lost sister, and who knows what might have happened then?”

Tafhapy abruptly dropped to his knees. Humbly he approached King Ptolemy, shuffling forward across the stone floor. He clasped his hands beseechingly and gazed up at the king.

“Your Majesty! I came here today to save the life of a man who means nothing to me—this Roman called Gordianus. In your great wisdom and mercy, Your Majesty has seen fit to free him, and for that I thank you. But now I beg for the life of another, who until this hour I did not even know to be alive—my only son! I know he’s a notorious criminal, but whatever he may have done, I beg you, for my sake, spare his life!”

The king peered over his enormous belly at Tafhapy, who proceeded to fall onto all fours and abase himself amid the filthy straw. “Really, Tafhapy, you have no idea of the magnitude of your son’s betrayal, or the enormity of his crimes. He’s not just a thief and a murderer, but a traitor of the worst sort. His treachery has brought untold disaster upon me. There is no possibility of a pardon for his crimes, no possibility whatsoever!”

Zenon loudly cleared his throat.

The king wrinkled his brow. “What is it, Zenon?”

The chamberlain shrugged and made a succession of gestures, each more fawning than the last. “Your Majesty always knows best, and as you say, there can be no possible pardon for such a scoundrel—unless, of course…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless the party seeking such a pardon could offer a substantial amount of gold—not an amount equal to that which has been irretrievably lost as a result of Artemon’s treachery, for that would be impossible—but enough to pay for the king’s … shall we say … upcoming travel expenses.”

“You mean the cost of all the bribes, bodyguards, and baggage-carriers to get me out of Alexandria before Brother Soter arrives?”

“To put it bluntly, Your Majesty, yes, that is precisely what I mean.”

The king sighed. “And what would you estimate that amount to be?”

“Roughly speaking…” The chamberlain named a sum so staggering that every person in the room drew a sharp breath.

The king gazed at the groveling figure at his feet. “Well, Tafhapy, what do you say? Can you cough up that much money in the next couple of days? And is the life of your long-lost bastard worth such a sum?”

All eyes turned to Tafhapy. He remained on all fours but raised his head. He chewed his lower lip. His bristling eyebrows moved this way and that, expressing a succession of conflicting emotions.

“Well, father?” said Axiothea. She stared at Tafhapy and crossed her arms. “What do you say?”

Artemon also moved to cross his arms, but the chains prevented him. He had to be content with duplicating his sister’s cold stare. “Yes … father. Am I worth such a ransom?”

Tafhapy swallowed hard. “Give me until sundown tomorrow, Your Majesty. I think I can raise it by then.”

Axiothea burst into tears. Artemon shivered like a man with a fever; his hard features softened and he looked at his father with an expression I could not hope to fathom. Tafhapy, too, began to weep, and so did Djet. Caught up in the flood of emotions, Bethesda and I held each other tightly. Even the dour chamberlain looked pleased with himself.

The king clapped his hands and called to an unseen attendant in the hallway. “Bring me something to eat, at once! Happy outcomes make me hungry.”

*   *   *

A short while later, the king and his chamberlain left the cell and rejoined the royal retinue in the hallway outside. The rest of us followed. Only Artemon was left behind, pending delivery of the ransom.

On the way out, we passed through the royal zoological gardens. Whoever laid out this part of the palace had decided that caged men and caged animals belonged in close proximity, though the animals had better living arrangements, with cleaner quarters and blue sky above them.

As we passed the various cages, pits, aviaries, and open-air enclosures, I gawked at a dazzling array of animals, birds, and reptiles such as I had never seen before. My nostrils were filled with unfamiliar smells and my ears with strange cries, squawks, and hissing noises.

Then I heard a familiar roar. From the far side of a large cage, the lion Cheelba came bounding toward me.

I cried out his name. I thrust my arm between the bars. Cheelba opened his mouth in a yawn, rubbed his face against my hand, and licked my fingers.

The king watched in wonder. “So it’s true, what I was told, that this lion is tame.”

“Mostly true, and mostly tame,” I said, thinking of Cheelba’s attack on Artemon. Through my tunic, I pressed my fingers to the tooth that hung from a chain around my neck. “Cheelba will defend a friend, if necessary.”

“What a splendid addition to the menagerie!” said the king. “Nothing adds zest to a royal procession like an exotic animal or a savage beast. In the next such parade, this lion can lead the way. He shall amaze the populace and bring credit to the House of Ptolemy! When might we use this lion next, Zenon? Perhaps for…”

The king caught himself and fell silent. Very likely, I thought, the next royal procession in Alexandria would be the one celebrating his brother’s accession to the throne.

The king swallowed hard. “Whoever may benefit from this beast, let it be recorded that it was I who added it to the royal menagerie. Write it down!”

One of the scribes in the retinue busily scraped a stylus against a wax tablet.

As we proceeded through the gardens, Djet fell back to walk beside Bethesda and me. He saw me frown, and asked what I was thinking.

“Just a small detail that nags at me. Something I meant to ask Artemon.”

“Tell me.”

I spoke more to myself than to Djet, since I had no reason to think he would know what I was talking about. “How was the wagon with the false sarcophagus substituted for the other? Artemon duped everyone into leaving the wagon unattended for a moment—I understand that part—but where did the other wagon come from? It can’t have been in that narrow passageway already, it can’t have come in from the side, and it was too big and heavy to come from above or below.…”

Djet laughed. “I can tell you!”

“You can?”

“Of course. I saw everything.”

“How?”

“I was hiding up in the rafters.”

“Ah, yes, I see. Go on, then.”

“It’s the oldest conjuring trick there is. As soon as you and Artemon and the others were out of sight, soldiers came out of a room that you had passed on your way in, pulling the second wagon. Very quickly they pulled the first wagon backward, out of the narrow passageway, and brought up the other wagon to take its place. Then they took the first wagon back to the room where they had been hiding. That seemed to be the end of it. But a while later, Artemon and his men came running back, and Artemon knew exactly where to look for the first wagon. Then there was a terrible fight, and all those soldiers were killed, and off Artemon and his men went with the first wagon. That’s when I climbed up on the roof. I saw the fight you had with Artemon, and then Cheelba saved you, and then more soldiers appeared, and then the
Medusa
sailed off, and
then
the king’s boat sailed up to the wharf—and you were on it! When I made my way home, I told the master you must be the king’s prisoner, and Axiothea said we must come look for you.”

I nodded. “By coming here today, you saved my life, Djet. In fact, you saved all of us in one way or another, even the king.”

“Yes, I know,” he said, as if it were quite a small thing. Then he ran ahead to walk beside Axiothea and his master.

XXXIX

“The rioters are burning something—again!” Berynus unfolded his long legs, stood up, and walked to the parapet. He shielded his eyes against the late-morning sunlight and squinted in the direction of Alexandria. “Look at that huge plume of smoke.”

I was on the rooftop terrace of the eunuchs’ new home in a tiny fishing village a few miles west of the capital. Kettel’s massive bulk was seated next to me on a long couch piled with pillows. Nearby, Bethesda sat cross-legged on a rug on the floor.

“When will the chaos stop?” I asked.

“Not until King Ptolemy makes his exit, preferably by ship, and Soter’s men arrive and start banging a few heads,” said Kettel. “In the interim, the lawlessness in the city is likely to get worse, not better. You made a wise choice, Gordianus, coming to stay here for a while. Are your quarters comfortable?”

The guest room I had been given was larger and far more elegantly furnished than my shabby apartment in the city—too elegant for my taste, actually, with all sorts of bric-a-brac strewn about—but the surroundings were irrelevant. Bethesda was back with me, and that was what mattered. We could have been sleeping in a tent or on the beach under a starry sky for all that I cared, as long as she was next to me.

“The room is very comfortable,” I said. “Still, I can hardly believe that the two of you gave up your splendid apartment in Alexandria.”

Kettel made a face that caused wrinkles to form on every side. “At our age, we’ve had quite enough of the aggravations of city life. This latest round of rioting was the straw that broke the camel’s back, as the Nabataeans say. While you were off traipsing about the Delta, the two of us packed up and left the city. Berynus had been plotting our move to this lovely village for quite some time, actually. We have so much more room here, and the beach is right outside our door. Here on the roof terrace, under this lovely striped awning, we can while away the hours, reading, writing our memoirs, and breathing in the fresh sea breeze. And Alexandria is only a day’s journey away, should we ever be foolish enough to crave a visit.”

I looked toward the city. The Pharos Lighthouse rose from the horizon no taller than my thumbnail. The plume of smoke rose twice as high.

Berynus wrinkled his craggy brow. “You don’t think they’ve set the Library on fire, do you? So much smoke…”

“More likely it’s coming from one of the warehouses on the southern harbor,” suggested Kettel. “Bolts of linen could produce a dark smoke like that, and burn for hours.”

I had spent only a few days in Alexandria before coming to the village, accepting an invitation that had been waiting for me at my apartment in the form of a letter left by the eunuchs with my landlord. To simply be alone with Bethesda in my old room, with no immediate danger hanging over us, lying for hours in our bed, venturing out only to find food when we needed it, was bliss—at first. Then I had begun to feel uneasy. The frequent smell of smoke and the sounds of violence from the street reminded me that the city was growing more and more dangerous. It also occurred to me that until King Ptolemy was well and truly gone, he might at any moment change his mind about my release and drag me back to his dungeons. The more I thought about the eunuchs’ invitation to retreat for a while to a sleepy fishing village, the more I liked the idea. So here we were, relatively safe but at loose ends, waiting, like the rest of Egypt, to see what would happen next.

“Master…”

I turned to Bethesda. In the presence of our hosts, we followed the decorum of master and slave, sitting apart from one another and with Bethesda showing deference. What we did in the privacy of my room was another matter.

“Yes, Bethesda?”

“Master, you said that we might take a walk along the beach before your midday meal.”

“Ah, yes, so I did. A nice walk will strengthen my appetite.” A walk had been Bethesda’s idea, but I was happy to indulge her.

“Don’t be too long. Kettel has made his special octopus and hearts of palm salad,” Berynus called after us, as we descended the stairway that led us directly to the beach.

As we walked along the shore, I took Bethesda’s hand. The waves lapped gently on the sand. Gulls wheeled and squawked above us. Low dunes hid the fishing village to one side and the distant city skyline to the other. In such a secluded spot, we might pretend that no one else existed.

“What will happen to Artemon?” said Bethesda.

I felt a slight prickle of jealousy, that another man should occupy her thoughts at such a moment. “I believe it was the king’s intention that he should be banished from Egypt. How the king will enforce such a decree, if the king himself goes into exile, I don’t know. Artemon is very, very lucky to be alive.”

“Do you think he’ll reconcile with his father, as Axiothea has done?”

I shrugged. “Who can say? Tafhapy paid a steep price for his son’s freedom, but I’m not sure that Artemon knows how to be grateful. He certainly has no sense of loyalty, or even common decency.” How flagrantly Artemon had broken the bandit oath, bringing destruction on all to whom he swore allegiance, while I, who cared nothing for the bandits, never brought them harm through word or deed.