The Judgment of Caesar: A Novel of Ancient Rome

by Steven Saylor

  “Magnificent!” I whispered.

  “Does Rome have any sight to match it?” asked Merianis.

  “Rome has many magnificent sights,” I said, “but no other city has a sight such as this. Have you been to Rome?”

  “I’ve never been outside Alexandria.”

  “But your Latin is excellent.”

  “Thank you. We can speak Greek, if you like.”

  “Which do you prefer, Merianis?”

  “I appreciate any opportunity to practice my Latin.”

  “Then it’s a pleasure to accommodate you.”

  She smiled. “You must be famished after the day’s journey. Shall I have food brought to you?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Then perhaps I could help to relieve the strains of the day.”

  I ran my eyes from the lapis-encrusted sandals on her feet, to the sheer linen skirt that left bare her well-proportioned calves, up to the many-pleated linen mantle that clung to her shoulders and shapely breasts. The mantle left her neck uncovered; a necklace strung with lapis baubles nestled against the silky flesh of her throat.

  “I’m rather tired, Merianis.”

  “It will require no expenditure of energy on your part if I simply give you a massage.”

  I gave her what I imagined to be a very crooked smile. “I think I should simply lie down and rest for a while. What’s through there, by the way?” I asked, noticing a narrow door covered by a curtain in the wall beside the bed.

  “Quarters for your slaves and for the young man traveling with you.”

  “Rupa and the boys? Where are they?”

  “They’ll be here soon, along with your trunk. The wagon in which they traveled and the mules that pulled it will be delivered to the cousin of the owner, as was your intention.”

  I looked at her more closely, scrutinizing her emerald green eyes. “I took you for a slave, Merianis.”

  “I am a slave—of Isis. I serve the goddess and belong to her completely, body and soul, in this world and in the next.”

  “You’re a priestess?”

  “Yes. I’m attached to the temple of Isis within the palace. But in her absence—”

  “Absence? Surely Isis isn’t off on a trip somewhere.”

  “As a matter of fact, my mistress is away from the palace.”

  I nodded. “You speak of Queen Cleopatra.”

  “Who is also Isis. They are one and the same. Queen Cleopatra is the incarnation of Isis, just as King Ptolemy is the incarnation of Osiris.”

  “I see. Why are you not with her now?”

  Merianis hesitated. “When she took her leave, my mistress left the palace . . . rather abruptly. I was unable to accompany her. Besides, my duties keep me here in the palace, close to the temple. Among many other tasks, I see to the comfort of distinguished visitors such as yourself.”

  I laughed. “I’m not sure what distinguishes me, except a multitude of misfortunes. But I am thankful for your hospitality, Merianis.”

  She bowed her head. “Isis will be pleased.”

  “Will you be seeing to the comfort of that other distinguished Roman who’s come to visit Alexandria?”

  She cocked her head quizzically.

  I strode to the window. “The one in the harbor. Surely you’ve noticed that fleet of Roman warships out there?”

  She joined me at the window. “There are thirty-five Roman ships in all; I counted them myself. Is it true that you know Caesar?”

  I drew breath to answer, then stopped short. Weariness and an excess of emotion had dulled my mind; otherwise, I would have realized, before that moment, the likelihood that the woman who stood beside me—exotic, beautiful, well-spoken, enticingly available—was something more than a servant or priestess. With the king and queen at war with one another, the palace must be filled with spies. Glancing sidelong at Merianis, feeling her nearness, smelling the heady scent of spikenard from her dark flesh, I could easily imagine a man letting down his guard in her presence and saying things better left unsaid.

  I turned my gaze to the harbor. The long day was slipping gradually toward nightfall. Ships cast long shadows on flat water pierced by dazzling flashes of reflected sunlight. The Pharos cast the mightiest shadow of all, darkening the entire entrance to the harbor. Beyond, the open sea extended to seeming infinity. I thought of the Nile emptying endlessly into that sea, carrying all that was lost or scattered in its waters. . . .

  “I’m weary, Merianis. Leave me now.”

  “As you wish.” She departed without another word, leaving a faint scent of spikenard behind.

  How long I stood at the window, I had no idea. The sun continued to sink until it touched a point on the horizon where the earth met the sea; it was then swallowed in a great effulgence of crimson and purple mist. The great harbor grew dark. On the Roman galleys, lamps were lit. Lamps were likewise lit on the great causeway, called the Heptastadion, that swept from the city out to the island of Pharos. Beyond that causeway lay another, smaller harbor to the south, the Eunostos, or Harbor of Good Return; near its center, an archway in the Heptastadion allowed ships to sail from one harbor into the other.

  There was a knock at the door. Merianis, I thought, and part of me was glad.

  But when I opened the door, I saw not the priestess of Isis but the wide-eyed face of Rupa, whose expression declared his astonishment at being inside the royal palace. I lowered my eyes and saw two more astonished faces peering back at me.

  “Androcles! Mopsus! You have no idea—”

  “How happy we are to see you!” cried the boys in unison, throwing their arms around me. Rupa looked as if he would gladly have hugged me, too, had there been room enough in the narrow doorway.

  “But where have you been all this time?” said Androcles.

  “And was that really you we caught a glimpse of, on the king’s barge?” said Mopsus.

  “And look at that!” said Androcles, running to the window. “It’s the lighthouse, bigger than a mountain! And all those boats in the harbor! Roman galleys, someone said, with Caesar himself aboard one of them.”

  Slaves carried my trunk into the room, followed by more slaves bearing trays of steaming food. Until the smell reached my nose, I had no idea how hungry I was.

  Mopsus said, “When you were with the king, did he show you Pompey’s—”

  “Eat now, talk later!” I said, my stomach growling. We would have to be careful when we did speak, for in such a place the floors had ears to listen, and the walls had eyes to watch. But after we ate—great steaming bowls of barley soup, pigeon meat roasted on skewers, spicy lentil wafers, and cups of beer to wash it all down—there was no talk at all, only sleep, as I fell against my pillow and left it to Rupa and the boys to find their own beds.

  CHAPTER XI

  “Thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five. Yes! Thirty-five Roman galleys in the harbor,” declared Mopsus, who had just counted them for the second time. Morning light glinted on the water and lit the face of the Pharos. The room smelled of the freshly baked bread that slaves had delivered for our breakfast. I sat back against the cushions on my bed, gnawing a piece of hard crust, while the boys stood at the window. Rupa sat on the trunk, shaking his head, amused at the boys and their perpetual squabbling.

  “Thirty-five? You missed one. I counted thirty-six!” insisted Androcles.

  “Then you miscounted,” said Mopsus.

  “I did not!”

  “You never could count higher than the sum of your fingers and toes,” said Mopsus.

  “Nonsense! You obviously missed one. Did you count that one with the gorgon head at the prow? I never saw such a fearsome ramming beak on a ship!”

  “Where?”

  “You can barely see it, because it’s mostly blocked by the buildings on that island. What’s the name of that island in the harbor, Master?”

  “It’s called Antirrhodus, and it belongs to the king. Those buildings are his private estate, with their own little harbor w
ithin the harbor.”

  “It must be a fabulous place to visit.”

  “Can we go there, Master?” said Mopsus.

  “I suspect one has to be rather more important than ourselves to receive an invitation to Antirrhodus.”

  “Yet here we are, with our own room in the palace,” noted Androcles. “Imagine that!”

  “Maybe Caesar will take over Antirrhodus, and make it his headquarters, and then—”

  “Mopsus, hush! You’re not to say a word about Caesar while we’re here in the palace. Don’t even mention his name. Do you understand?”

  He frowned, then saw the seriousness of my expression and nodded. Over the last few years, back in Rome, the boys had learned a thing or two about secrecy and espionage. He turned his attention back to the harbor.

  “Some of them are cavalry transports,” he noted. “Those ships nearest the lighthouse have horses on the decks.”

  “Imagine bringing horses all the way from Greece,” said Androcles. “Do you think they might be the very horses that . . . you-know-who . . . used in the battle at Pharsalus to trample . . . what’s-his-name?”

  “What’s-his-head, you mean!” Mopsus laughed.

  “But look! More Roman soldiers are disembarking from that larger ship onto the smaller one, the one that keeps sailing out from the palace to bring them to that landing area over there.”

  “More soldiers? Landing area?” I said. “How long has this been going on?”

  “Oh, for a while,” said Androcles. “The landing area—a sort of big square, on the waterfront—is getting rather full, what with all those Roman soldiers and Egyptian soldiers, and that crowd of people in fancy clothes, and all those banners and pennants. Do you think there’s going to be some sort of official meeting between the king and . . . well . . . you-know-who? That could be him now, standing amid the soldiers on that Roman galley.” He squinted. “He’s wearing very fancy-looking armor and a big red cape—like you-know-who.”

  “And he’s bald, like you-know-who. The sunlight off his head is blinding me!” Mopsus laughed.

  “What are you two going on about?” I got up from the bed to have a look, but before I reached the window, there was a loud rap at the door.

  I nodded to Rupa, who sprang up and pulled the door open. Merianis stood in the hall.

  Rupa widened his eyes, then pulled himself erect and squared his impressive shoulders. The boys simply gaped.

  Merianis wore an extraordinary gown of some sheer green material embroidered with silver threads and cinched beneath her breasts with a silver cord. The green matched her eyes. As before, she wore lapisencrusted sandals and a lapis necklace, but the stones took on a very different hue when seen next to the green of her gown. The effect, together with her ebony skin, was quite remarkable.

  “Can you be ready in half an hour?” she said.

  “Ready for what?”

  “The lord chamberlain suggests that you wear your best. I assume there’s something suitable in that trunk of yours?”

  “Nothing remotely as fine as what you’re wearing.”

  “But, Master,” said Mopsus, “don’t you remember? Before we left the house in Rome, at the very last moment, you decided to bring along your best toga.”

  “So I did,” I said.

  “A toga would be splendid!” said Merianis. “The sight of you will make our visitor feel right at home.”

  “Visitor?”

  “Surely you’ve been watching the assembly gather out on the royal landing? The king desires that you should be in attendance when Caesar arrives.”

  “I see. I don’t suppose I have any choice in the matter?”

  “None whatsoever. I’ll be back in half an hour to escort you.” Merianis smiled, then was gone.

  Rupa gave me a look that echoed the question the boys spoke in unison: “Who was that?”

  “I’ll explain while I dress,” I said. “Rupa, would you fetch my toga from the trunk? It must be in there somewhere; let’s hope it’s not too wrinkled. Androcles, Mopsus, attend me. You know the drill.” The boys had been helping me put on my toga ever since I acquired them. Except for their inevitable bickering over who should tuck and hold and who should drape and fold, they had perfected the art. Valuable is the slave who has learned to dress a Roman citizen in his toga so that he emerges looking like something other than a pile of rumpled wool.

  I had forbidden the boys to speak the name of the man who was about to set foot in Alexandria. But there was another who was likely to make an appearance that morning, and his name the boys already knew better than to utter in my presence. At the prospect of greeting the presumptive master of the Roman world, I felt a curious absence of emotion. But my heart sped up and my brow became clammy when I considered that I might, within the hour, come face-to-face with the man I had once called my son.

  How clever the architects of the Ptolemies had been, generation after generation. From without, the palace complex appeared grand, intimidating, and impenetrable. Yet, inside that grandiose edifice, one experienced not a sense of chilly containment, but the simple pleasures of walking through sunlit passageways and quaint courtyards to the music of birdsong and splashing fountains. We might have been strolling through the neatly landscaped gardens and splendidly appointed hallways of some idealized Greek villa, except that the villa went on and on and on. Thus ran my thoughts, all the better to distract me from what was truly on my mind, as I followed Merianis.

  “The two slave boys and your mute friend seemed crestfallen when I told them they must stay behind,” she remarked.

  “I suspect they simply wanted more time to look at you. Especially Rupa.”

  She smiled. “You look quite splendid yourself.”

  I laughed. “I’m a gray, wrinkled face peering from a gray, wrinkled toga.”

  “I think you’re rather distinguished.”

  “And I think you’re rather disingenuous, Merianis. But as long as I stand next to you, I don’t suppose anyone will notice me anyway. Is it much farther?”

  “No. In fact—”

  We turned a corner and stepped into a patch of sunlight. I blinked at the bright blue sky above and felt a fresh sea breeze on my face. Before us lay a vast stone-paved square thronged with courtiers in ceremonial wigs or colorful headdresses and elaborate robes. Where the square terminated in steps leading down to the water, a long row of Roman soldiers stood at attention. Companies of Egyptian soldiers were stationed at each corner of the square, and at the very center I saw a canopy with pink-and-yellow tassels, and knew that Ptolemy must be beneath it, seated on his throne.

  I assumed we would stay at the edge of the crowd, but Merianis boldly strode forward. When she saw that I hung back, she smiled and took my hand and led me like a child toward the gaudy canopy. Courtiers yielded to her, gatherings of eunuchs stepped back to let her pass, and even the ring of spearmen who circled the king and his retinue broke ranks to let us through. Pothinus stood near the king. He spotted us and strode over.

  He spoke in a nervous rush. “At last! What took you so long, Gordianus-called-Finder? The king will be relieved; he was quite insistent that you be here. Watch everything; say nothing. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  “And why on earth are the two of you holding hands?”

  Merianis’s fingers disengaged from mine.

  Pothinus returned to the king’s side. There was a blare of trumpets. A small boat had pulled up to the steps. Its occupants disembarked, and through the crowd I caught a glimpse of a familiar balding head. My heart sped up.

  The Roman soldiers formed a cordon leading up to the canopy. In the pathway formed by their ranks, a small group came striding toward the king. Foremost among them was Caesar himself. He was dressed not as imperator, in military regalia with a scarlet cape, but as a consul of the Roman people, in a toga with a broad purple border.

  I had last seen him in Massilia, on the southern coast of Gaul, on the day his forces entered the cit
y following a lengthy siege. Caesar himself had been off in Spain, defeating his enemies there, and was on his way back to Rome, and thence to Greece for a direct confrontation with Pompey; his stop in Massilia had been little more than a courtesy call, a chance to exhibit his famous penchant for mercy and at the same time to exert beyond question his subjugation of a proud city that had maintained its independence for hundreds of years. Pressed by circumstance, the Massilians had sided with Pompey against Caesar, and had lost everything. I myself had been trapped in the city during the final days of the siege, looking for my son Meto, who I feared was dead. But Meto’s disappearance had merely been part of Caesar’s scheme for taking the city, and when Caesar made his triumphant appearance, Meto was at his side, beaming with joy. In that moment, the absurdity of the war and the cruelty of my son’s deceit had overwhelmed me; instead of embracing Meto, I had rejected him, publicly disowning him before Caesar and the world. Since that moment I had seen neither Meto nor Caesar, though the shadows of both had continually fallen over my life.

  Now, half a world away from Massilia, our paths had intersected again.

  When I had seen him last, Caesar had been flush with victory, a warrior-god doling out grim justice to the Massilians before heading off to face the greatest challenge of his life. He arrived in Alexandria fresh from his triumph at Pharsalus, the undisputed master of the Roman world. His thin lips were set in a straight line, and his jaw was rigid, but his eyes sparkled and betrayed an intense enjoyment of the moment.

  His long chin, high cheekbones, and balding pate gave him an austere appearance, but the spring in his step showed the energy of a man half his age. To arrive at such a moment must have been one of the supreme accomplishments of Caesar’s long career, the sort of grand occasion that painters and sculptors might celebrate for generations to come. The master of the world’s new order was about to meet the ruler of the world’s oldest kingdom; the new Alexander was about to confront the heir of Alexander the Great, in the city Alexander himself had founded. In Caesar’s countenance I saw a man fully conscious of the moment’s import and radiant with confidence.