Render Unto Caesar (11 page)

Crispus came in to check on his health while he was considering the matter. He took one look and exclaimed “Hercules! You look even worse than you did yesterday.” “I'll tell the slaves to make up a poultice for you. One of the women is good at that.”

The woman who was good at poultices turned out to be Tertia. She came into the room a little while later, carrying a steaming herb-scented cloth on a plate and smiling nervously. Erotion was at her heels.

“You look terrible,” the little girl said, eyeing him with something amounting to admiration.

“I know,” he admitted. “But I expect your mother's poultice will help it.”

Erotion nodded and Tertia smiled.

“Thank you for my cake,” Erotion continued primly, and looked at her mother for approval.

“And thank you very much for
my
cake,” her mother added warmly. “It was delicious.”

Hermogenes smiled lopsidedly and waved a dismissive hand. “I have been grateful for the kindness with which my friend's household has received me, when I know I have given you extra work.”

“You're very kind, sir,” the woman said. “Here, let me give you your poultice.”

She folded the cloth, arranged it against his cheek and the corner of his eye, and secured it around his head and across his nose with strips of linen. “There you are, sir,” she said. “I'll come back with a fresh one in a couple of hours.”

“Thank you. Tertia, don't go yet. There's another thing I would like your advice on.”

“
My
advice, sir?” she replied, very taken aback.

“As well yours as anyone's. You're a sensible woman. I have a package containing some valuables which I wish to leave with some honest and reliable person who will keep it safe for me until I come to collect it—or, if I don't come, send it to the person I have designated. I do not want to impose on your master, and—”

“Why can't you just leave it here, sir?” she asked innocently. “If you're worried that one of us might steal your things, you can lock it in your trunk.”

“It's to do with my business,” he said truthfully; and, less truthfully: “I want it available from the forum. I was thinking that the best place to leave it might be in a temple. Do you know if there's a temple to the Lady Isis near the forum?”

The slave woman's eyes opened wide. “To
Isis,
sir? No. The Egyptian cult is banned in Rome. Didn't you know that?”

He had not known it, and he was stunned. Isis was a divinity adored by men and women of all classes and nations, worshipped throughout the Greek world and honored even in the cities of the West. He had never been a religious man—his education had always ridiculed the superstitions of the masses—but he'd always respected Isis more than any of the Olympian gods. She was the Lady of the Waves, protectress of trade and of civilization; the goddess of a thousand names, of whom all other goddesses were mere reflections. And she was good and just, a wife and mother and lover, not a jealous and vindictive tyrant like so many other divinities. “Why?” he asked in bewilderment.

Tertia shrugged. “They first banned it years and years ago, sir, I suppose because it isn't Roman. I heard they were going to change their minds, and there was even going to be a big official temple, but then came the war. The queen of Egypt used to say she was Isis incarnate, so the emperor banned the goddess from Rome all over again. Since then people have kept on building temples and setting up shrines, but every now and then the order goes out, and the praetorians come round and tear them down.” She paused, then added, “It's only in the city itself, sir, and the suburbs for about two miles. There's a temple in Ostia, but that's too far.”

“Oh,” Hermogenes said weakly.

Tertia took a step toward him, watching him closely, and with her left middle finger sketched over her breast the Isiac knot—the sign of the initiate into the mysteries of Isis.

Hermogenes had been initiated into the mysteries when he was sixteen—Thaïs had been an enthusiast of the goddess—and he returned the gesture. Tertia broke into a wide smile.

“There are private chapels, sir,” she informed him. “Nobody ever bothers those. I go to one myself. I could take you there now, if you could get permission from my master for me to leave my work during the morning.”

For a moment he debated whether to accept the offer or whether to opt for some more approved divinity. Then he decided that the secrecy of a banned cult, and the bond created by his own involvement in it, made it ideal. “Yes,” he agreed. “Thank you.”

The rest was easy. Crispus appeared to be well aware that his slave woman was a devotee of Isis; he was a little surprised when Hermogenes declared an interest in worshiping the goddess that morning, but accepted it as an not-unnatural consequence of being struck by a consul, and quickly gave his permission for the visit.

The “private chapel” turned out to be a converted basement in a temple of Mercury about six blocks away, a place whose luridly Egyptianizing wall paintings made Crispus's Nile Rooms look positively tasteful. A young priest of Mercury had conceived a devotion to Thoth, the Egyptian form of his god, and had wanted to worship the queen whom Thoth honored and advised. He welcomed Tertia, and was pleased to meet an Alexandrian worshiper of the goddess, particularly one named after his own favorite god—Hermes, of course, being the Greek god identified with Thoth or Mercury.

It wasn't possible, however, simply to leave the token without an explanation. Hermogenes found himself compelled to give a version of the truth, emphasizing his growing belief that his fears were groundless, and telling Tertia that he was ashamed even to mention them to his host, but saying that it would set his mind to rest to know that the token was safe. At this the young priest readily accepted the little leather bag and set it behind the pedestal of the statue of Isis, in the curtained-off alcove at the far end of the shrine. They all joined in a prayer to the goddess—Hermogenes found it very odd, saying the familiar phrases in Latin—and anointed themselves with the sacred water of the Nile, of which the priest had a supply in an urn.

As they walked back to the house again afterward, Hermogenes was half-amused and half-dismayed by the way the touch of that water had comforted him. He found himself thinking longingly of the Nile—the waters that flowed to Alexandria through the Canopic canal; the blueness of Lake Mareotis in the sun, even though the water was brown when you looked down at it; the seasonal rise and fall of the life-giving stream; the taste and the rhythms and the scents of home.

Would he ever see home again? He tried to tell himself that of course he would, that it was merely a question of remaining firm and refusing to be intimidated for a few more days. Now that the token had been hidden, the consul had nothing to gain by killing him. The shadow of his midnight fears, however, refused to be shaken off entirely. He kept remembering the brutal rage in which the consul had erupted from his chair. There had been nothing there that he could reason with.

He thought of Myrrhine waiting for him to come home. Again he imagined her writing him a letter, but this time his mind threw up the image of her scribbling in happy ignorance while he lay dead in some Roman cemetary.

He shook his head. Rufus had agreed to pay. It made
sense
for Rufus to pay. It made no sense at all for Hermogenes to weaken now, when he had almost won. That would be sheer cowardice, and, even worse, stupidity.

When he got back to the house, Crispus invited him to share a light meal, and the two of them reclined side by side in the dining room eating bread and cheese and olives. Hermogenes expressed his amazement at finding water from the Nile in Rome.

“I think ships from Egypt sell off the surplus of their water supply when they come into port in Italy,” Crispus told him. “There are a lot of Italians who worship the goddess. Even here in Rome.”

“I had not realized that the cult was banned.”

Crispus made a condemning sound. “It's a piece of idiocy that it should be! Cybele has a great temple right in the middle of the Palatine, her festivals have a place on the calendar, and her eunuch priests are everywhere. Why should Isis be banned? She's far more civilized than a goddess who requires her priests to cut their balls off!” He pulled himself up. “You know what I think it is, Hermogenes? It's that we Romans know that the Phrygians are barbarians, so we aren't afraid of their gods—but you Greeks, especially you Alexandrians, are another matter. Rome can call Phrygia her handmaid, but Alexandria was her rival.”

“You are kind to say so,” Hermogenes murmured.

“No, I mean it! Everyone knows that if Antonius and the queen had won the war, they would have moved the capital to Alexandria. People still hate your city because of it.” Crispus helped himself to another olive, then added ruefully. “Of course, I'm Philhellenic to a fault. All my friends laugh at me for going on about how much I love Alexandria.”

Hermogenes didn't know how to reply to this. He had a drink of watered wine instead.

“That valet of yours…” Crispus began, changing the subject.

“Menestor?”

“Yes. He's a lovely boy. Have you had him long? I don't remember seeing him in your house before.”

Oh, no,
Hermogenes thought in alarm. “We've had him since he was born,” he said firmly. “And both his parents before him. Probably you didn't notice him before because the last two times you came he was out of the house much of the time, being educated. I started to employ him as a secretary about a year ago. He's only my valet for this trip. Normally I employ his father for that, but I didn't want to take Chairemon onto a ship. He gets seasick.”

“He seems a bright, observant boy.”

“He is. I value him highly.” He hoped that would make it clear that Menestor was not small game, to be preyed upon at leisure.

It seemed to. Crispus looked morose and ate another olive. “I don't think the boy I have now likes me,” he said in a low voice.

Hermogenes floundered in acute discomfort. “He has a great regard for you,” he managed at last. “He was telling me how kind you were to his father.” He still didn't feel that it was kind to call a man Dog, but Kyon himself seemed to feel differently.

“He was telling you?… Oh, yes, he went to the forum with you as a guide, didn't he. Well, perhaps you're right, and he has a ‘regard' for me.” He looked even more morose. “The trouble is, I
adore
him, and he seems to hate it when I touch him. He cries sometimes.”

Hermogenes had no idea what to say. It seemed to him that if you adored someone, you wouldn't force yourself on them and make them cry, but he could not say that.

“I keep telling myself he'll get used to it and start to enjoy it, but it's been months since I first took him to my bed, and he doesn't seem to like it any better now than he did the first time.” Crispus sighed and tossed his olive stone back into the dish. “Love is nothing but heartbreak.” He looked at his guest, then frowned. “Is your face hurting?”

“It is,” Hermogenes agreed, glad of the excuse. “I'm sorry. If you don't mind, I think I will go ask Tertia for another poultice.”

Back in his room, he found Menestor sitting at the desk reading. The young man set the scroll down and stood up when his master came in.

“Where did you get the book?” Hermogenes asked in surprise.

“Titus Fiducius lent it to me,” Menestor replied at once. “He has a lot of Greek books. It's poetry.”

“Titus Fiducius is a cultured man.” Hermogenes hesitated, then continued resolutely, “Menestor, just now he was telling me what a lovely boy you are. I want you to know that you are not obliged to sleep with him just because he is our host. If he harasses you, come to me.”

Menestor gazed at him with an unreadable expression. “He's noticed that Hyakinthos can't stand him, has he?” he said at last. He shook his head. “The stupid boy was making it obvious. That's
stupid,
to throw away all your chances like that!” He sounded both exasperated at the stupidity, and concerned at the loss to Hyakinthos.

Startled, Hermogenes said, “If he really can't endure it, how's he supposed to hide it?”

Menestor looked puzzled. “I don't know, sir.” He made a face, and said, “He should have had a master like you.”

Nothing about the conversation had gone the way Hermogenes expected. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded irritably.

Menestor winced at the tone. “Nothing, sir. Only that you're never interested in boys, even if … even if they're pretty.”

Hermogenes almost replied, “Even if I
were
interested in boys, I hope I wouldn't take one against his will!” An uncomfortable fair-mindedness prevented him: how much had Titus
known
that he was taking a boy against his will? There was no suggestion that Hyakinthos had ever tried to resist, and he'd begged the guests not to tell his master how much he hated what was required of him. The household expected him to be a good and obedient slave, and he was trying to be just that, even though his whole nature rebelled at it.

Could any master ever be certain that a slave was willing? Could the slave himself be certain of it, if the act wasn't actually repugnant? Without the freedom to refuse, what difference was there between love and mere obedience?

He shook his head, confused by his own thoughts. Menestor was still looking at him expectantly.

“Whatever happens to Hyakinthos,” Hermogenes told him, trying to push the conversation back in the direction he'd intended for it, “I want you to be clear that you are not obliged to sleep with Titus Fiducius.”

Menestor bit his lip. “Sir, Titus Fiducius told me I could keep this.” He lifted the book slightly. “Do you want me to give it back?”