The Judgment of Caesar

by Steven Saylor

  I heard the voices from within more clearly, but the language they spoke was strange to me—not any version of Egyptian of which I had any knowledge. To hear Bethesda’s voice uttering such alien sounds sent a shiver up my spine; it was as if some other being had claimed her voice, some creature foreign to me. I made no move to enter the temple, but stayed where I was on the threshold.

  From inside, the priestess of the place—for little by little I had decided the voice must be that of a woman—took up a chant. The chant grew louder, until I knew the boys must be able to hear it as well. I looked behind me and saw them at the edge of the glade, rooted to the spot, their eyes trained on the opening of the temple, their mouths shut.

  How long the chanting lasted I had no way of knowing, for it cast a spell on all of us. Time stopped; even the motes of dust in the air ceased their slow, swirling dance, and the dragonflies, afraid of its magic, dispersed. I closed my eyes and tried to discern whether the chanting carried some message of healing and hope, for had Bethesda not come here to find a cure for her malady? But the words were strange to me, and the feeling the chant inspired in me was not of hope but of resignation. Resignation to what? Not to the Fates or Fortune, but to something even older than those; to whatever unseen force metes out our measure of life beneath the sun.

  The gods of Egypt are older than the gods of Rome. A Roman who comes to Egypt finds himself far away from the gods he knows, at the mercy of forces older than life itself, powers that have no names because they existed before men could give them names. I felt stripped of all pretensions to wisdom and worldliness; I was naked before the universe, and I trembled.

  The chanting ceased. There was movement within the temple. A silhouette emerged from its uncertain light, and in the next moment Bethesda stood before me.

  “It’s time,” she said.

  “Time?”

  “For me to bathe in the Nile.”

  “This temple—you’ve been here before?”

  She nodded. “I know this place.”

  “But how?”

  “Perhaps my mother brought me here once, when I was child. I’m not sure. Perhaps I’ve only seen it before in dreams. But it’s just as I remember it—or dreamed it.”

  “It seems to me that I must have been here before, too. But that’s impossible.”

  “Perhaps this is a place everyone sees in dreams, whether they remember those dreams or not.” Bethesda seemed satisfied with this explanation, for she smiled very faintly. “I must bathe in the river now, Husband.”

  I stepped aside to let her pass. “I’ll come with you,” I said.

  “No. The wisewoman says that I should go alone.”

  “The wisewoman?”

  A figure stepped from the shadows from which Bethesda had emerged. It was an old woman wearing a simple linen gown with a ragged woolen mantle draped over her shoulders, despite the heat of the day. Her hair was white, pulled into a knot at the back of her head. Her skin was like ancient wood, burned dark by the sun and carved with deep wrinkles. She wore no jewelry. Her gnarled hands, clutching the woolen mantle, looked very small. So did her feet. Her sandals were ragged and worn. A cat, its sleek fur as black as night, followed the old woman out of the shadows and rubbed itself against her ankles.

  “Did my wife make a sufficient offering?” I reached toward the coin purse in my pouch.

  The woman held up her hand. “The god requires no offering to satisfy your wife’s request.”

  “The god?”

  “This place is sacred to Osiris. The spring is wedded to the Nile, and in this place the union of the waters is perpetually blessed by Osiris.”

  I bowed my head, not understanding, but deferring to the woman’s authority. Bethesda walked down the steps. I moved to follow, but she raised with her hand. “No, Husband. Don’t follow. What I have to do, I’ll do alone.”

  “Then at least take the boys with you, to stand by in case you need them. In case anyone else—”

  “The place is sacred, Husband. No one will disturb me.”

  I followed her as far as the little grotto formed by the spring. She stepped across the tiny pool and out of sight, following a narrow path that appeared to lead down to the river’s edge.

  I would have followed her, but some power stopped me. Instead, I found myself staring at the little pool formed by the seeping spring. Patches of sunlight glinted on the surface. Tiny, translucent creatures wriggled under the water.

  I heard a loud sigh and looked back at the priestess. She was stooping down, laboriously lowering herself to sit on the temple steps. I hurried back to assist her, then sat down beside her.

  The black cat, purring loudly, insinuated itself between us and lifted its chin, inviting the woman to stroke its throat with her gnarled fore-finger. Cats were a rarity in Rome and little liked, but in Egypt the creatures were considered divine; once in Alexandria I had witnessed a furious mob tear a man limb from limb for the crime of killing one. The cat looked up at me and mewed loudly, as if commanding me to give it pleasure. I obliged by stroking its back.

  The woman nodded toward the far side of the glade. “Those two must give you no end of trouble,” she said.

  I followed her gaze and saw that Mopsus and Androcles had disappeared. I smiled and shrugged. “They’re no worse than other boys their age. Why, I remember when I first adopted Meto—” I caught myself, and fell silent.

  “Your son’s name causes you pain?” She shivered and pulled her cloak about her.

  “I’ve sworn never to speak it again. Sometimes I forget.” I looked at the sun-dappled vines and listened to the chirping of birds. The magic of the place began to fade. The priestess was merely a frail, thin-blooded old woman, after all; the cat was nothing more than an animal; the temple was merely a stone hut constructed by mortals who had died and been forgotten long ago. The spring was hardly more than a seep, and even as I watched, a tiny cloud obscured the sun, and the dappled leaves faded from gold to tarnished brass.

  “Your wife loves you very much,” the old woman said.

  I smiled. Was this what women talked about in secret when one came to the other as suppliant to priestess—domestic affairs? I stroked the cat gently, feeling the vibration of its purring against my palm. “I love her very much in return.”

  She nodded. “You must be at peace, then. Those who drown in the Nile are especially blessed by Osiris.”

  Cold fingers clutched my heart. “Surely you mean to say, ‘Those who bathe in the Nile.’ ”

  The old woman made no reply.

  I could not speak. I stood up, feeling dizzy. My head was as light as smoke.

  Hearing nothing but the rush of blood in my ears, seeing only lights and shadows, I rushed to the spring. I stamped awkwardly across the little pool and followed the path that Bethesda had taken.

  After only a few steps, the path forked. I took the branch to the right.

  The path led steadily downhill. Through the tangle of leaves I saw the gleam of the river. But before I reached the water’s edge, the foliage became more tangled, and I knew Bethesda could not have come this way. Even so, I pushed through the vines and rushes until I reached the water. I felt sun on my face and sucked in a breath of air. I gazed at the Nile and saw it flowing steadily from right to left.

  Suddenly, the water before me became strangely clouded. I gazed at the apparition, confounded, until I realized what it must be. Rupa, somewhere upriver, had only moments before cast his sister’s ashes into the water. Instead of vanishing at once in the flood, the ashes somehow held together, changing shape and only slowly dispersing, as clouds change shape and gradually disperse in a hot sky. The ashes of Cassandra passed before me on the water, and in the river’s gleam the image of her face stared back at me.

  For a long moment I was bemused by the strange illusion; then I was jarred to my senses by the sound of a boyish scream.

  The cry came from nearby, a little downriver. It was Androcles, screaming for help: “Master!
Oh, Master, come quickly!” Mopsus began to scream, as well: “Anyone! Help us! Come help us, anyone, please!” Along with the screaming, I heard the sound of splashing water.

  Hackles rose on the back of my neck.

  I bolted upright and doubled back, forcing my way through the foliage until I came again to the fork in the path. I took the left branch and ran toward the water’s edge. I collided with something and heard a high-pitched yelp as I tumbled head over heels. It was Mopsus I had run into; on my hands and knees I looked over my shoulder and saw him lying flat on his back, convulsed with weeping. I heard more weeping and turned to see Androcles on the path ahead of me. He was soaking wet.

  “What’s happened?” I said in a hoarse whisper.

  “Gone!” Androcles cried. “She’s gone!”

  “What do you mean?” I staggered to my feet and grabbed his shoulders.

  “We heard you say that we should go with her, so we followed her, even though she wanted to go alone. It was Mopsus’s idea. I think he just wanted to watch her bathing—”

  “What happened? What did you see? Androcles, speak to me!”

  He shivered and clutched himself and blubbered, suddenly weeping so hard he couldn’t speak.

  I ran past him, down to the water’s edge. The place was quiet and secluded, with a leafy canopy overhead and rushes all around. Bethesda was nowhere to be seen. I called her name. The shout rousted a covey of birds, who flapped and cawed and streamed skyward from the under-growth. I looked at the water and saw the same cloudiness I had seen before, upstream. The ashes of Cassandra were passing by, more diluted and dispersed now, but still discernible. Sunlight glinted on the surface, and I was certain I saw a face in the water. Bethesda? Cassandra? I couldn’t tell which. I dropped to my knees and reached into the water, but my hands found only pebbles and moss.

  “We watched her from the rushes.” It was Mopsus speaking. He must have recovered from the collision and followed me. There was a tremor in his voice, but he was not as hysterical as his little brother. “You said we should come with her, so we did. And not to see her bathing, like Androcles says! She didn’t take off her clothes, anyway. She knelt by the water for a moment, then stood and walked into the river.”

  “And then?” “She just kept walking, until the river . . .” He searched for words. “The river swallowed her up. She just . . . disappeared under the water, and didn’t come back! We went in after her, but the water’s too deep. . . .”

  I strode into the river. The solid, sandy bottom quickly gave way to an oozing muck that pulled at my feet. The water rose to my chest, and with another step, to my chin. “Oh, Bethesda!” I whispered, looking downriver. Rushes swayed in the warm breeze. Sunlight glinted on the water. The placid surface of the Nile gave no indication of her passing.

  For as long as the daylight lasted, we searched for her.

  Mopsus ran to fetch Rupa. He was a strong swimmer. While the boys ran up and down the riverbank, Rupa stripped off his tunic and dove beneath the surface again and again, but he found nothing.

  With no spring to feed it, the opposite bank was sandy and relatively barren, but the rushes along the river’s edge might nonetheless conceal a body. I swam across and searched that side as well. All day we searched, and found no trace of Bethesda.

  At some point, half-mad with grief, I ran back to the temple. I meant to confront the priestess, but she had vanished, along with the cat. Inside the chamber, a single lamp burned very low, its oil almost depleted. By its flickering light I gazed at the images on the walls—gods with the bodies of men and the heads of beasts, hieroglyphs of scarabs and birds and staring eyes that meant nothing to me, and dominating them all, the image of Osiris, the mummified god. What words had passed between the wisewoman and my wife? Had Bethesda intended merely to immerse herself, and met with some mishap? Or had it been her intention all along to sink into the Nile and never emerge?

  I stepped out of the temple, into the glade. Again I felt an uncanny shiver of recognition. Had I visited this place before, in dreams afterwards forgotten? If I ever saw the place again in my sleep, it could only be in a nightmare.

  Throughout that long, wretched day, from time to time my restless fingers chanced upon the vial Cornelia had given me, still tucked away in my tunic. The thought that I still possessed it was the only comfort left to me.

  At last, darkness fell, and further searching became impossible. We retreated to the wagon and made a camp for the night. No one was hungry, but I built a little fire beside the road nonetheless, simply to have something to stare at.

  The boys huddled close together and wept. Rupa wept as well, remembering his sister, to whom he had said a final farewell that day; despite his muteness, his quiet sobbing sounded like any other man’s. Stunned and exhausted, I did not weep. I merely stared at the fire until, by some miracle of Somnus, sleep came, bringing the gift of oblivion.

  CHAPTER VII

  I was awakened by a spear point poking into my ribs.

  A voice spoke in that reedy accent peculiar to the Greek-speakers of Egypt: “I’m telling you, Commander, this is the fellow I saw. He helped the freedman build the funeral pyre.”

  “Then what’s he doing here, all the way across the Delta?” The voice was deep and heavy with authority.

  “Good question, sir.”

  “Let’s see how he answers it. You! Wake up! Unless you want this spear poked through your ribs.”

  I opened my eyes to see two men standing over me. One was resplendent in the uniform of an Egyptian officer, wearing a green tunic beneath a bronze cuirass and a helmet that came to a point; the early-morning sunlight glinting off his armor made me blink and shield my eyes. The other man wore a peasant’s tunic but had a haughty bearing and a foxlike glint in his eyes; I instantly took him for a spy. More soldiers stood beyond them.

  The officer poked me with the spear again.

  Suddenly, there was a blur of motion, so startling that I covered my face. I heard a horse cry, and then, through laced fingers, I saw two hands seize the spear and yank it from the Egyptian officer’s grip. There was a scuffle, and I scrambled to my feet to see a band of soldiers swarming over Rupa, knocking the spear from his grasp and bending his arms behind his back.

  “Don’t hurt him!” I cried. “He’s my bodyguard. He was only protecting me.”

  “He attacked an officer of King Ptolemy’s guard,” sniffed the man who had been poking me, ostentatiously dusting off his forearms. One of his underlings, bowing his head obsequiously, offered him back his spear. The officer snatched it without even a nod of acknowledgment and thrust it against my belly, backing me against the wagon. The point tore through my tunic and scraped naked flesh. I looked down to see a trickle of blood on the bright metal.

  “We’re peaceful travelers,” I protested.

  “From Rome, I presume, to judge by that accent. I think you’re spies,” said the officer.

  “Like this fellow?” I eyed the man in the tunic.

  “Takes one to know one,” said the officer. He turned to the spy. “And you should have noticed that the bodyguard was unaccounted for. Probably down at the river relieving himself when we showed up. Sneaking up on us like that, he could have killed me! How many others did you observe in this Roman’s party?”

  “Just the two slave boys, the ones over there.”

  Androcles and Mopsus, both heavy sleepers, had been rousted by soldiers and were getting to their feet, rubbing their eyes and looking about in confusion.

  “And a woman,” added the spy. “A bit younger than this fellow, but presumably his spouse.” He trained an angry gaze at me, passing on the hostility the officer had vented on him. “Where is your wife, Roman, the one who joined you the day after you burned Pompey? Did you lose her somewhere in the Delta?”

  I felt a stab of pain, sharper than the spear point pressing against my belly. As fearful as the last few moments had been, at least, however briefly, thoughts of Bethesda had been driven from my
mind.

  “My wife . . . went down to bathe in the river yesterday. She didn’t come back.”

  The officer snorted. “A likely story! You arouse my suspicions even more, Roman.” He addressed a subordinate. “Take a party of men and search for the woman. She can’t have gone far.”

  “I’m telling you, she disappeared yesterday in the river.” “Perhaps. Or perhaps she’s a spy as well, gone off on a mission of her own.”

  “This is absurd,” I said.

  “Is it?” The officer poked the spear harder against my flesh. “We have some idea of who you are, Roman.”

  “Do you? I find that quite unlikely.”

  The spy spoke up. “Philip told me. Ah, that takes you by surprise, doesn’t it?” His snide tone was particularly grating.

  “Philip? Pompey’s freedman? What are you talking about?” “You thought the beach was deserted, that afternoon you spent building Pompey’s funeral pyre. But when Ptolemy’s army withdrew, I stayed behind, to observe. I watched the freedman, wailing over the headless body of his old master. And then you were washed ashore; you could only have come from one of Pompey’s ships. I wasn’t close enough to hear what you said, but I watched the two of you gather driftwood and build the funeral pyres. And the next day, that merchant ship brought the rest of your party—the woman and the mute and the two boys. Oh yes, there was a woman; of that I’m quite sure! And the next day you parted company with Philip, at the fishing village. I had to choose which of you to follow, and Philip seemed the obvious choice. I joined up with some soldiers, and we apprehended him on the road heading east.”

  “What did you do to him?”

  “We’ll ask the questions, Roman,” said the officer, poking me with the spear.

  The spy laughed. “Philip wasn’t harmed. He’s quite comfortable, traveling under guard in Ptolemy’s retinue. Who knows what important bits of information he may have to give us, in the coming days. But he already told us about you.”