Opening her eyes, Laelia looks at Astera, her face downturned and intent on the bowl of water. Clearly, Astera sees something. Her eyes brim with it, tearful. Her voice is reverent, as Laelia has never heard it before. It’s hushed and timorous. “Do you see her? Look, and tell me that you see her.”
Slowly, Laelia lowers her gaze. The surface of the bloody water ripples differently than before. Not by the breeze but as if there were fish swimming below the surface, invisible save for the currents they stir up. She tilts closer, moving her head over the bowl.
“Do you see her?”
There is only one answer. Laelia gives it.
Philon
Philon awakens suddenly. He’s in a room he doesn’t recognize. Above him, the exposed beams of a roof. A roof? Not the sky? Or the canopy of trees or breathing of a tent flap? He plucks off a linen sheet that similarly mystifies him, sets his feet on the floor, and swings himself to a sitting position. Too fast. His head swims with the motion even after he’s braced himself by pressing his palms to the mattress and stilling. He looks out the open window at a rectangle of sky that is a puzzle in blue. None of the visuals tell him where he is. It’s scent that does that. He smells salt in the air. Standing and thrusting his head through the window, he inhales. Below him the view of the harbor of Syracuse, a thing of beauty, twinkling under the midday sun. The sea is blue and living and abuzz with all manner of boat traffic.
Then he remembers. The mission Spartacus sent him on. The pirates. Being at sea again. The stops at Naxus and Acium and Catana. The meetings. The growing hope. And then here. Coming home to Syracuse. Finding Iphitus. Oh, definitely Iphitus and the joy of last night. He is in his mouth still, the lingering taste of his semen mixed with the wine he’d used to wash it down.
Hearing the door open abruptly, Philon turns.
It’s Iphitus, but he doesn’t return the intimacy of Philon’s smile. He runs in, breathing hard, his face pale. Kastor is right on his heels, huge compared to his short, thin frame. He’s on him before the Greek can say a word. Kastor jerks him around by the shoulder. His hand shoots out, as fast as a punch, and clamps around Iphitus’s neck.
Philon shouts, “Kastor! Stop that! Are you insane? Leave off of—”
The Galatian slams a big-knuckled finger to his lips, a gesture so savage, it silences Philon. Only then, in the muffled quiet, does Philon hear the pounding rising up from the floors below them. Thumps as on a door and then a shout. Then thumps again. That, he realizes, is what woke him.
Kastor’s voice is a sharp hiss. “Romans! Someone betrayed us.” His fingers dig into Iphitus’s neck. “You, did you do this?”
Philon thrusts himself between them and pushes two-handed against the Galatian’s chest. “Release him! Of course he didn’t betray us. You think he would invite Romans to his home? Think!” Kastor’s grip doesn’t slacken. “Think! You know who betrayed us. Bolmios! We were fools to trust that pirate.”
That strikes Kastor. His face changes, anger replaced by revelation. “Those fucking pirates.”
Despite seeming to have convinced him, it’s still a moment before Philon can pry the man’s fingers from their grip on his lover’s neck. Philon holds Iphitus’s cheeks in his hands, rubbing life into them as he gasps. The banging comes again, this time starting and not stopping.
“Of course…I…didn’t do it,” Iphitus manages. “Philon, you know—”
“Is there a back way out?”
There is. After Kastor and Philon grab as many of their things as they can, Iphitus shows them. Down to the third level, through a storage room, out the back, onto a roof that, once they jump from it, will take them down toward the Greek fishermen’s section of the harbor. The banging on the door has stopped. Instead, there’s the sound of an ax chopping it to pieces.
Kastor jumps down, curses under his breath, whispers up, “It’s uneven. Watch your feet.”
Philon moves to follow him. He pulls Iphitus with him, the two of them clasping hands tightly. Iphitus twists his hand from Philon’s grip and pulls him in and kisses him so hard, their teeth slam together. He pulls back. “I can’t. I can’t go. Everything is here. If I leave, it’s all gone.”
“They’ll kill you,” Philon says. “They’ll torture you first.”
Kastor hisses from below.
Iphitus’s lips brush Philon’s. “I’ll talk to them. I drank too much last night. I’m hard to rouse. There’ll be no sign of you. Go. I’ll be fine. We’ll have what we said last night. But only if you go.” He breaks away, pushing Philon toward the edge as he backs toward the storeroom. From inside, the sound of the door crashing in. “Go.”
Before Philon can stop him, Iphitus twists away and disappears inside.
“You little goat turd, if you don’t get down here now—” Kastor doesn’t finish the thought.
But he’s right. There’s nothing else for it. Shouts come from inside. Gruff demands and Iphitus’s frantic answering. Feet bang through the apartment, climbing stairs. Philon jumps. He hates it, but he jumps, thinking, Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
And things had been going so well.
—
A month earlier Philon and Kastor had sat on a beach near the mouth of a river called the Trais. They faced the Gulf of Tarentum, watching a skiff row in from a modestly larger ship a little distance out. Four men pulled the oars. One sat high in the stern, staring grimly forward.
“That is them, all right,” Kastor said. He squinted to see better in the afternoon glare. “They look a murderous lot. Treacherous. As likely to cut our throats as deal plainly with us.” He shrugged. “Our kind of people, eh, Greek?”
“Yours, perhaps,” Philon said. “That’s why you’re here. Because you look like a pirate.”
Kastor grinned. “I’m here to keep you alive. For some reason, Spartacus thinks you’re worth preserving. I can’t see it myself.”
“No, it’s because you look like a pirate.”
“What’s wrong with that? They know how to enjoy themselves.”
“That’s not much of a boat,” Philon said, meaning the larger one.
Kastor grunted. “This may be a bad idea, you know.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that.”
It was Philon’s fault Spartacus had sent them on this mission. Too much talk through the winter about Sicily, about the slave revolts there and the ever-simmering discontent. He’d talked of the great Greek cities—Syracuse and Arigentum and Heraclea. And the Phoenician ones—Solus, Lilybaeum, Panormus. Proud, beautiful cities that had been played as pawns in the war between Rome and Carthage. Did they not yet long to be freed from Rome and to govern themselves again? Of course they do, he’d told Spartacus. What he hadn’t known then was how open the Thracian’s ears truly were, how he heard every word and etched them on the scrolls he carried around inside his head. When the general sat him down and proposed this venture, explaining the logic of it and the possible outcomes, he’d seen clearly that all the seeds of his plans Philon had planted himself.
And now here he was, about to make his first acquaintance with pirates.
When the skiff grounded, the rowers racked their oars and began to climb out. The man in the back stepped from bench to bench and leaped over the prow. He landed with a splash in the tumbling foam. He kicked his way toward the two waiting men. Stopping a few paces from them, he planted his legs widely and propped his hands on his hips. It was almost comical, Philon thought, how much he looked his role. Gray breeches. A tunic belted at the waist but open down the front, revealing a fleshy torso and hairy chest. A curving knife on his left hip. Hair in thick knots that fell past his shoulders. And rings. In his ears, around his neck, on his wrist and fingers. Philon wondered where he was from. North Africa, perhaps, though there was more red in his skin than brown. Behind him, still standing in the surf, his companions glowered, looking put out just to be in Philon and Kastor’s presence.
“I take it you’re Bolmios, the pirate?” Kastor asked.
>
The man didn’t indicate either way. “Is that what I think it is?” He jangled when he gestured toward the vase on the sand between the two men.
Philon jumped to the side, presenting the waist-high vessel with a theatrical flourish. “Pickled fish paste. Courtesy of Spartacus.”
“And the coin?”
Kastor jiggled the bag at his waist belt. “There’s coin. The agreed-upon amount.”
The man appraised the Galatian as if he were fish that might have turned bad. “Why do you want to go to Sicily?”
“We have business there,” Philon said.
“Business? You wish to spark a revolt. That is the business Spartacus is in, ain’t it?”
“You take issue with that?” Kastor asked.
One side of the man’s face scrunched up, one eye actually closing for an instant. And then he was normal again. Scowling again. Philon couldn’t tell if the expression had been an answer to the question or just a twitch. “Show me the coins.”
Kastor didn’t. “Tell me. Do you take issue with our purpose?”
“Do whatever you want, so long as it does me no foul and I am paid.” The pirate watched Philon and Kastor exchange glances, looking disgusted. “You two egg carriers! Have I frightened you? Listen, your war is your war. Kill Romans until you’re nailed for it. I’m here for the coin, and if I take coin to do a thing, I do it.”
“A pirate’s word, is it?” Kastor asked.
“Means more than you’d know.” The man pursed his wide lips and pointed at the purse. “Show me.”
After another glance at Philon, Kastor untied the bag and counted out gold pieces on the palm of his hand. The pirate inspected them for some time. When he was satisfied, he made them disappear. “I’m Bolmios,” he said, turning and striding away. “Bring the fish paste.”
—
That’s how it began. Hardly comforting, and things were slow to improve. Not the first day, for Bolmios was still surly and the crew seemed personally affronted by their presence. Not the second day, as they passed through the Strait of Messina, whipped by a wind that slapped away the tops of the waves and drenched them. Philon spent hour upon hour clinging to the railing, hurling up everything he’d eaten or drunk. And when that was exhausted, he went on, vomiting the dry, heaving ghosts of meals long gone. He wanted to ask why Bolmios didn’t have a bigger ship. This one was scarcely large enough to hoist the skiff onto and lash it down. But asking questions was beyond him.
It was a misery made no better by how much his discomfort seemed to amuse the captain and his crew. Each of them grew suddenly talkative, striking up unwanted conversations with the back of Philon’s head. They were full of jokes at his expense. Jibes about whether this was a Greek custom. Was this how his kind offered tribute to Poseidon? Was he chumming the water for fish? Had he eaten something that disagreed with him? Queries about whether his condition was contagious. Offers of food and wine, descriptions of banquets past. One of them described a flood in his home city that had made the sewers spill into the streets. “Were you there?” he asked. “Many assumed just the same position that day. It’s uncanny.”
So it wasn’t the first or second day, or the third—as that was no better. On the fourth, though, with the strait past them, the weather cleared. The sea calmed. And again the beauty in the water’s ever-changing hues of blue could be appreciated. The crew anchored the ship in a secluded Sicilian cove. They ferried a very pale Philon to a white stone beach. The small stretch of earth was backed by high cliffs that made it inaccessible from land. A perfect spot, Philon learned, from which to fish. A spot to build a fire and roast the fresh catch and to drink wine and to enjoy the calming solidity of the stones he cupped in his hands.
Thus he barely noticed when their voyage became a beach outing. Fish sizzled to a crisp above the small fire. The crewmen snatched them out of the flames with quick fingers, drizzled them with olive oil and sprigs of thyme. At first he claimed he wouldn’t eat. Couldn’t drink. But neither proved true. He did both, with the sudden appetite and thirst of a man who hadn’t eaten in several days.
Bolmios shed his clothes and swam out into the sea. He went a goodly ways out. Philon, reclined on a blanket on the stones, wondered—half-hopefully—if he might drown. He didn’t. On his return, one of his crew asked, “Did you find one?”
The captain shook his sopping mane of a head, sprinkling Philon with salty drops. He tossed himself down onto the stones, as freely as if they were soft sand. “Nah,” he said, scooping chunks of fish paste onto a chunk of hard bread. “No luck this time.”
The crewman, seeing the question on Philon’s face, said, “He fucks things out there. I’m not joking. I’ve seen him come back with his cock red from it.”
Kastor’s brow wrinkled. “You can swim and do that at the same time?”
“That’s the only way to have a mermaid,” Bolmios answered. “Hard work, that, but worth it. You should try it.” Bolmios pointed an oily finger at Philon. “One time with a mermaid, and you’re cured of the sea illness. Never happen again. I swear it. Isn’t that right, boys?” Several voices affirmed that it was. “See? I’m telling you.”
“Tempting,” Philon said, “but I don’t think mermaids would be to my liking.”
Bolmios eyed him, offered, “Mermen, then? I can’t say what it’s like with them. You tell me if you find out.”
Wishing to change the subject, Philon asked, “How long are we to stay here?”
“Just the now. Tonight we sail, put in at Naxos. You’ll do your business. We’ll do ours. And then on, Catana, next. Thapsis. All the places we agreed upon with your Thracian.”
All the places, Philon thought, that he had promised Spartacus he had contacts.
“Must we travel the whole way in that boat? It’s barely more than a skiff.”
“That’s what your Thracian paid for. You think there were enough coins in that purse to merit a finer boat? No. I wouldn’t be wasting time with you at all if I didn’t suspect the Thracian has bigger plans than he admits. He didn’t tell me why I was to ferry you from place to place, but I suspect I know what he has planned. Your Spartacus, he wants an escape option to Sicily. He wants a kingdom all his own, and thinks his slave army can win it.” He lifted a wineskin and took a long pull from it. “As far as I’m concerned, fine. Let him have the island if he can take it. He’ll need boats. That’s a lot of people to move from one place to another. A lot of coin to be had for doing it. And there are not many who would do it.”
“But you would?” Kastor asked.
Bolmios shrugged. “For the right price, why not?”
Kastor jabbed his chin toward the vessel floating on the sea swells. “Please tell me you have a bigger ship than that.”
“Of course. That’s nothing. We sail that to travel without being worthy of notice. My real fleet—” He clicked his tongue off the roof of his mouth. “That’s another thing entirely. War galleys, my friend. Three of my own. Two biremes and one monoreme. Several trade vessels with space for storage—or passengers. A corbita.”
“Corbita?” Philon asked.
“A cargo ship. The hull is—” He started to shape it with his gnarled hands, but dropped the effort just as quickly. “It doesn’t matter. You only care for the railings of ships anyway. And you know what else, my friends? I know a Phoenician who sails a trireme. He’s good, he. Even the Romans give him a wide berth.” He leaned back, hand on his belly. “Together we could move your army—for the right price. And after you’re settled, we’ll be your lifeline to the rest of the world—for the right price.”
—
Running, stumbling, following Kastor as they careen through the city’s narrow alleys, Philon thinks, We’re done for! And all because they’d trusted the untrustable. Pirates. Of course they’d sold them out. Hadn’t he always known, really, that they would? It was only wanting to believe Spartacus’s words that had swayed him. And Spartacus wasn’t wrong. They wouldn’t have betrayed him. They would
’ve loved his words, his cause, if he had spoken them. But Philon wasn’t Spartacus. Neither—despite his virtues—was Kastor.
“I left my knife back there,” Kastor says through gritted teeth.
“Where are we going?” Philon asks.
“Away from them” comes the Galatian’s curt answer.
Away from them? Was there any away from them in this mazelike city? Roman soldiers could even now be posted at every gate, waiting for them. One of them could turn from around any corner and shout an alarm that would bring the whole city down on them. One could spot them from any roof. Could step through any door. The possibilities make each step a twitching misery.
“Calm yourself. Don’t be so obvious if you want to live through this.”
“You still think we might?”
“Of course we will. That’s what I’m here to make sure of, remember?”
The Galatian pulls up when their alley intersects with a larger avenue. He steadies Philon by showing the palm of his hand, and then he leans forward, looks right and left, and decides. He turns right, walking now, shaking his arms to loosen them, casual like a man returning from laboring. They wade through people, brush shoulders. They pass by the flicking tails of several horses’ rumps, then under an awning that shades a section of the street from the sun. Philon’s eyes dart as fast as biting flies. He inventories the people they pass. A man with one white eye. A youth, bare-chested, with a sack slung over his shoulder. Two boys leading an ass. A woman in a black robe—surely too thick a garment for the Sicilian summer—who roughly wipes grime from a child’s face. A girl with large eyes who steps out of their way, staring, for some reason, at Kastor. With each glance he seeks one thing before passing on—Romanness. He sees none. These are Greeks. No soldiers yet.
The Risen Page 25