The Venus Throw - Roman Sub Rosa 04

by Steven Saylor

  "Perhaps; but there are those who can endure such pain without screaming. If I didn't scream, would the fire be any more or less real? What if I did scream, and you happened to be deaf and looking elsewhere—would I still have been burned? Then again, if I were to scream, and if you were to hear me, you still would have no way of knowing whether my pain was real or a sham."

  "You seem to know a lot about such things," said the young man, who smiled and took another sip. I noticed he had spilled a bit of wine on his toga.

  "A little. Philosophy is the creation of the Greeks, of course, but a Roman may attempt to comprehend it. My old patron Cicero made himself something of an expert on philosophy, to help his oratory. From the Skeptics he learned that a proposition is always easier to disprove than to prove—a useful thing for a lawyer to know, especially if he has no scruples about defending guilty men."

  I took a long sip of wine. The mood in the room had changed completely. My visitors' frosty suspicion had melted into trust. The com-forting cadence of philosophic discourse was familiar ground, as I suspected it would be.

  "But just as a name is not a thing, so appearance is not existence," I went on. "Consider: two visitors come to my home. At first glance, they appear to be a man and a woman, and this is clearly the impression they wish to give. But on closer scrutiny this is only an impression, not the truth; thus do my senses tell me and my powers of logic deduce. Questions follow: if the man is not a man, and the woman is not a woman, then what are they? Who are they? Why do they wish to be perceived as something they are not? Who are they trying to fool, and why? And why do they come to the house of Gordianus the Finder?"

  "And do you know the answers to all these questions?" rasped my visitor in the stola.

  "I think so, to most of them, anyway. Though some things about your companion still puzzle me ..." I looked at the little man, who smiled in a way I couldn't account for, until I realized that he was smiling not at me but at someone behind me.

  I turned to see my daughter, Diana, in the doorway.

  Her posture was tentative, as if she had merely paused to have a look into the room and would move on at any moment. She wore the long-sleeved gown that children of both sexes wear, but at thirteen she was already beginning to fill the garment in ways unmistakably feminine. Her dark blue gown merged with the dimness of the hallway, so that her face, lit up by the brazier, seemed to hover in the air. Her skin, which had the creamy texture and the rosy glow that my visitor's painted cheeks so crudely mimicked, made the darkness of her long eyelashes and her thick eyebrows all the more pronounced. The flames caught the highlights of her long black hair, which was parted in the middle and fell down her shoulders. Her brown eyes peered at us curiously and with a hint of amusement. How like her mother she had always been, and how more like her she became every day! Sometimes it seemed to me that I had nothing to do with creating her, so completely was she cast in Bethesda's image.

  She smiled faintly and began to move on. "Diana," I called, "come here for a moment."

  She stepped into the room, wearing that mysterious smile she in-herited from her mother. "Yes, Papa?"

  "We have visitors, Diana."

  "Yes, Papa, I know. I saw Belbo let them in at the front door. I was on my way to tell Mother, but I thought I'd have a closer look first." "A closer look?"

  She gave me a bemused, exasperated look, such as Bethesda gives me when I belabor the obvious. "Well, Papa! It's not every day that a eunuch and a man dressed as a woman come calling on you, is it?"

  She looked at my visitors and smiled sweetly.

  They didn't smile back, but instead looked glumly at each other. "I told you that the pretense was worthless. Even a child saw through it!" grumbled the old man in the stola, no longer disguising his voice or his Alexandrian accent. He wearily pushed back the mantle from his head. His silver hair was pulled back from his face and knotted at the back of his neck. His forehead was wrinkled and covered with spots. The folds of flesh hanging from his chin quivered and he suddenly looked ridiculous, an unhappy old man with painted cheeks and painted eyes.

  The eunuch in the toga covered his mouth and giggled tipsily. "But you look so pretty in makeup!"

  "Enough of that!" growled the old Egyptian. His mouth settled in a deep frown and his jowls drooped as he stared bleakly into the flames, his eyes full of despair.

  Chapter Two

  This is my daughter, Gordiana, whom we call Diana." I took her soft, smooth hand in mine. "Diana, we are honored by the presence of Dio of Alexandria: philosopher, teacher, esteemed member of the Academy, and currently the chief ambassador to Rome from the people of Egypt."

  With the unstudied dignity of a distinguished man used to being formally introduced and hearing his titles recited, Dio stood, clasping his hands before him, pulling his shoulders back. His self-possession seemed peculiarly at odds with his strange costume; with his painted face and his feminine garments he looked like the priest of some eastern cult—which was precisely what his companion turned out to be.

  "And this," said Dio, gesturing to the little eunuch, who likewise stood, though a bit tipsily, "is Trygonion, a priest at the Temple of Cybele here in Rome."

  The eunuch took a little bow and pulled off his hat, from which tumbled a mass of pale yellow hair. The color was a bleached, unnatural shade of blond. He ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head to untangle the curls.

  "A philosopher . . . and a gallus!" Diana said wonderingly. The last word gave me a start. Gallus is the Latin term for a castrated priest of the Great Mother, Cybele. All the galli are foreigners, since by law no Roman can become one. The word is pious in the mouths of the goddess's adherents, but others sometimes use it as a vulgar epithet ("You filthy gallus!"); the idea of men becoming eunuchs, even in the service of the divine, remains foreign and repulsive to most Romans. I couldn't remember ever having taught the word to Diana, but then she is always coming out with things I never taught her. She learns them from her mother, I suspect.

  "Yes," Dio said ruefully, "puzzle that, Gordianus: what could a philosopher and a gallus possibly have in common—the man who lives by reason, and the man whose life is the surrender of all reason? Ha! Circumstances make strange bedmates. The more desperate the circumstances, the odder the bedmates." He cast a sidelong, gloomy glance at the eunuch, then suddenly looked doubtful. "I do not intend this metaphor literally, of course. You do have this phrase in Latin, yes? About circumstances and bedmates?"

  "Something close enough."

  He nodded, satisfied that he had made himself understood. His Latin was in fact impeccable, though his accent was distinctly Alexandrian, with the particular inflections of those born in Egypt whose ancestry and primary tongue are Greek. Hearing him speak freely, I now recalled his voice from many years ago. It had grown coarser with age, but was undeniably the same voice I had listened to so attentively on the steps outside the temple of Serapis in Alexandria when I was a young man, eager to learn all I could about the world. Dio's voice took me far back in memory and far away from Rome.

  Introductions finished, we sat, except for Diana, who excused herself and left the room, no doubt to go tell her mother.

  Dio cleared his throat. "You remember me, then?"

  "Teacher," I said, for that was what I had always called him in Alexandria, and it now felt awkward to call him by his name, though I was long past the age of deference, "of course I remember you. You'd be a hard man to forget!"

  "I had thought, after so many years . . . And then, when they told me your name, how could I know for sure that it was the same Gordianus whom I had known so long ago? To be sure, the name is unusual, and also they seemed to think that you had been to Alexandria as a young man, and what they said of you sounded like the tree that would have grown from the sapling—this expression you have also, yes? And I have used the correct tenses? Good. Still, with so much danger around me, so many betrayals—you understand why I could not come to you openly? Why I hesitated to
reveal myself to you? Why I had to be suspicious even of your very fine wine?" He looked at me uneasily and chewed a fingernail. "Even when I saw you, I was not quite sure that you were the Gordianus I had known in Alexandria. Time changes us all, and you wear a sort of disguise as well, you know."

  He gestured to something on my face. I touched my chin and realized that he meant my beard.

  I smiled. "Yes, I was clean-shaven back then. Alexandria is too hot for beards, and I was too young to grow a decent one anyway. Or do you mean all the gray among the black? Gray hair and wrinkles are a kind of involuntary disguise, I suppose, worn by anyone who lives long enough."

  Dio nodded and studied my face, still trying to decide whether he could trust me. "I have to be very careful," he said.

  "Yes, I know something about your situation," I said. "Your journey from Alexandria, the attacks on your entourage after you landed down in Neapolis, the threats against you here in Rome, the fact that the Senate looks the other way. There's plenty of talk in the Forum these days about what people call 'the Egyptian situation.' "

  "Still, how did you guess it was Dio?" asked the little gallus, pouring himself another cup of wine. "Our disguises got us safely through the streets. Granted, they may be less convincing at such close quarters—"

  "Yes," said Dio, "how could you possibly have known it was me? Surely you didn't recognize my face, hidden in shadow and painted like a woman's, and after all these years. And surely it was not my voice, for I tried to speak like a woman and as little as I could, and you have not heard me speak for so long."

  "Teacher, I'm not sure exactly why you've come to see me, but I assume it has something to do with the reputation I've made for myself: Finder, I'm called. I knew who you must be almost at once. If I couldn't figure out as small a thing as that, coming to see me would be a waste of your time."

  "Elucidate," said Dio, in his expressionless teacher's voice.

  "Yes, make yourself clear!" laughed the little gallus, lifting his wine cup and shaking out his bleached curls.

  "Very well. That you were not what you wished to appear was immediately evident to me, as it was to Diana, and even to Belbo, my doorkeeper."

  "What gave me away?" said Dio.

  I shrugged. "Little things. Who can list all the differences between the ways that men and women walk and talk and hold themselves? An actor on the stage can convincingly portray a woman, but an actor trains for the task. To simply paint your face and put on a stola is hardly an impersonation."

  "Then the pretense was not at all convincing? Be specific! I have to know, because if I cannot succeed with this disguise, then I must find another. It could mean the difference between—between life and . . ." He bit at his fingernails again, but finding nothing left to gnaw at, pulled nervously at the wrinkles that hung from his neck.

  "Your fingernails gave you away, for a start. Roman matrons make a ritual of their manicures."

  "Ah!" He looked at his nails with disgust. "A terrible habit. It's come back to me only since I arrived in Italy. I cannot seem to stop myself."

  "You might grow back your nails, but your hands would still give you away. Such brown, weathered hands—no Roman matron has hands like yours, and neither does any citizen of standing. Only slaves and farmers have such hands—or visitors from foreign climes where the sun stays hot all year long and burns everyone brown as a nut, from King Ptolemy down to the lowest field slave."

  "Ptolemy!" Dio spat the name.

  "Yes, I saw your agitation earlier when I spoke his name, which gave further confirmation to what I already suspected: that Dio of Alexandria had come to pay me a visit."

  "But you still haven't explained how you came to have such a suspicion in the first place," said the gallus. " 'Elucidate!' " he quipped, mimicking Dio.

  "By steps, then: My visitor is dressed as a woman but is not a woman. My visitor must be a man, then, with a reason for concealing himself—I confess that I overlooked the possibility that either of you might be a eunuch. A man in trouble, perhaps in danger—that seemed likely from your nervous mannerisms and the fact that you refused any food, despite the fact that your stomach was growling. From your brown hands and your accent, I knew you must be foreign."

  I shrugged. "But there's a point where explaining the discrete steps in a logical progression of thought becomes too tedious to bother with— would you agree, Teacher? Like asking a weaver to explain how a tapestry was made by taking it apart thread by thread—what a mess you'd have! Suffice it to say that given what I had already deduced, the supposition leaped to my mind that my visitor must be Dio of Alexandria. I've heard of your plight; rumor says that you've been hiding in private houses here on the Palatine Hill; suddenly it occurred to me that this foreign stranger with a desperate demeanor might be Dio. To test the possibility, I felt you out. I spoke of philosophy, my days in Alexandria, King Ptolemy. Your reactions confirmed my suspicions. This is not philosophy or mathematics, Teacher, but I think you must see how my mind works, and how I have put to use the ways of thinking which you taught me long ago."

  Dio smiled and nodded. How curious, that in the fifth decade of my life I could still be warmed by the approval of a teacher I hadn't seen and had scarcely thought about for thirty years! "And what about Trygonion?" Dio said.

  "Yes, what did you make of me?" asked the little gallus, his eyes sparkling. (I say 'his eyes,' though many people, perhaps most, would say 'her eyes'; as often as not, eunuchs are referred to as females, which seems to please them.)

  "I confess, Trygonion, that you stumped me. I knew that you weren't what you pretended to be, but I got it wrong. I assumed you must be a young woman in a toga and hat, trying to pass herself off as a man."

  The gallus threw back his head and let out a throaty laugh. "A logical balance, I suppose, for those who think of things as one or the other: a young woman in a toga, to match an old man in a stola!"

  I nodded. "Exactly. The expectation of symmetry seduced me into error."

  "So you took me for a woman!" said Trygonion, sitting low in his chair and fixing me with a feline gaze. "Who did you think such a woman might be—the philosopher's slave, his daughter, his wife?" He reached over and stroked the top of Dio's wrinkled hand with his fingertips; the philosopher made a face and drew back at the touch. "Or his Amazon bodyguard, perhaps?" Trygonion laughed.

  I shrugged. "Your features and your voice confused me. Eunuchs are rare in Rome; I overlooked that possibility. I saw that you were unaccustomed to wearing a toga, as might be expected of a woman—but also of a foreigner. I did notice your accent, but it's faint, and not Egyptian; Phrygian, I assume, now that I know you're a gallus. Your Latin is almost that of a Roman. You must have lived here a long time."

  "For ten years. I came to serve at the Great Mother's temple here in Rome when I was fifteen, the very year that I consecrated myself to her worship." By consecrated, Trygonion meant castrated; Dio winced. "So, the gallus proved a harder riddle to solve than the philosopher," the little priest said, looking pleased with himself.

  "As is only logical," said Dio irritably, "given that philosophers strive for lucidity, while the priests of Cybele make a religion of mystifying the senses."

  "And yet our host's young daughter perceived the truth at a glance," said Trygonion.

  "A beautiful girl," said Dio softly, wrinkling his brow. "Such insight on the part of a child seems almost preternatural, don't you think, Gordianus?" Trygonion looked at me shrewdly. "Perhaps your daughter is a witch."

  Dio scowled and shifted uneasily, but I decided to indulge the gallus's sense of humor rather than take offense. "Diana's mother grew up in Egypt, which has many eunuchs. Diana was born with Egypt in her blood, so I suppose she knows a eunuch when she sees one. I'd like to take credit for her cleverness, but certain insights definitely come from her mother."

  "Perhaps they are both witches," said Trygonion.

  "Enough of your rudeness," growled Dio. "These galli think they can say anything an
d behave however they choose, under anyone's roof. They have no shame."

  "That's not all we lack," said Trygonion with a straight face.

  Whatever the source of her insight, Diana had also put her finger on the more perplexing mystery that lay beyond the thin disguises of my guests: what were they doing together? It was clear that they had no love for each other.

  "If you've had enough wine," I said, knowing that Trygonion had drunk more than his share while Dio had barely touched his cup, "and if we've talked enough of your disguises, perhaps we should speak of more serious things. Why have you come to me, Teacher, and what do you want from me?"

  Dio cleared his throat. "You spoke a moment ago of what you Romans call 'the Egyptian situation.' I take it, then, that you know of the false will of King Alexander, the schemes of Caesar and Pompey to get their hands on the wealth of Egypt, the wholesale murder of my colleagues who have come to seek justice from the Senate of Rome —"

  I raised my hand. "Perhaps you should begin at the beginning and explain to me each step that brought you to my door. But to start, I want only the simplest answers to two simple questions. First: why have you come to me?"

  Dio looked at me for a long moment, then gazed into the flames of the brazier. His voice trembled. "I have come to you because there is no one else in all Rome to whom I can turn for help, no one else I can trust—if indeed I can trust even you."

  I nodded. "And second: what do you want from me, Teacher?"

  "I want you to help me to—" He choked on the words. He turned his gaze from the brazier to me, so that I saw the flames dancing in his eyes. His jaw quivered and the fleshy folds of his neck shook as he swallowed hard. "Help me. Please! I want you to help me to . . ."

  "To help you do what?"

  "Stay alive!"

  Chapter Three

  With his great mane of dark hair, his towering physique (not yet gone to fat), and his amiable manner, the philosopher Dio had been a conspicuous figure in the Alexandria of my youth. Like most of the upper class of Egypt, Dio was of Greek blood—with a touch of the Scythian, he had claimed, to account for his height, and a bit of the Ethiop to account for his dark complexion. He had been a familiar sight on the steps of the library attached to the Temple of Serapis, where philosophers met to debate one another and instruct their pupils.