He began coughing.
Flaminius put his hands on the man’s shoulders, urged him to lie back. ‘Don’t exert yourself any further,’ he said.
‘But I must,’ the merchant wheezed. ‘I have something to tell you. Come closer.’
Flaminius had to lean very close to make out the whispered words. ‘A confession,’ Claudius Mercator went on. ‘Sometimes I told… I told lies to encourage people to finance me.’ When Flaminius protested that this was a minor sin, he shook his head wildly. ‘I go now to the Underworld. Tell Menander that when I die, he will be free…’ He frowned. ‘Do you think I will be punished for what I have done? The lies I have told?’
‘Don’t worry yourself about it,’ said Flaminius. ‘You should be at peace in your last moments. Forget any untruths that may be troubling you.’
‘But I have to confess,’ the merchant insisted, ‘Only then will I go to my rest with a clean heart. Come closer!’
Flaminius leant to place his ear beside the dying merchant’s mouth. As he heard the man’s final words, his expression changed, hardened. Claudius Mercator’s voice trailed away.
Sitting up, Flaminius examined the merchant’s still face. It had changed from its usual florid complexion to something the colour of wet clay. His chest stopped rising and falling. His head rolled limply to one side. The troglodytes gathered round, staring in awe. Menander joined them and stood looking sadly down.
‘What did he say to you?’
The slave seemed to resent it that his master had spoken his last words to another man.
Flaminius rose to his feet. ‘To start with, Menander, you’re a free man.’ The slave looked stricken, as if unable to believe the words. ‘He said a lot more,’ Flaminius went on. ‘Much of it concerns my own reasons for being here, and I can’t speak of it to you, or anyone else. But one thing is clear. We can’t return to the caves, even if you have found your long lost tribe…’
‘I have found much more than that,’ Menander said quietly.
‘No doubt,’ said Flaminius. ‘But we still can’t go back.’ He turned and looked out across the plain. The distant walls were barely visible in the light of the moon. ‘We still have unfinished business in the city of the Garamantes. But the gods are smiling upon us. We’ll need an army to get back in there and free our comrades. And that’s exactly what we’ve got!’ He turned back to Menander. ‘You can command them. You seem to have more influence with these people than I do. Naturally, since you’re of their tribe, and you speak their language…’
‘Naturally,’ said Menander, ‘since I am their rightful ruler.’
—25—
Phazania, 22nd December 124 AD
Amasis woke to a sandaled foot thudding into his ribs.
Groaning, he tried to roll away, but the cold, dank rock wall barred his escape. Flinching, he held his hand up to block out the light of a blazing torch. Hands seized him and he was dragged up onto his feet. From nearby he heard a cry of pain and anger.
He was still in the dungeon cell underground. The gate stood open, and the cell was crowded with burly figures who he recognised as Garamantian warriors. He saw no sunlight, but something told him that this was another day. On the far side of the cell, four warriors had forced Dido to the ground and one was cruelly twisting his hand in her hair. Sweat ran down her face and blood trickled from her lips but her mouth was now clenched shut.
More guards marched in, dragging Osorkon between them. They flung him to the ground and laid into him with the butts of their spears. He struggled to rise but the attack was unrelenting. Soon he fell facedown and did not stir.
Another guard glared at Amasis. He bared his teeth at the boy, seized him, and forced him to look down at Demetrius’ paillasse. To Amasis’ sick horror, the old man was worse than ever.
‘Why are you doing this?’ he shouted.
The man flung him down across the old man, who grunted in pain and terror but did not awake.
The guards swept out of the cell, leaving Osorkon groaning in the middle of the floor. Amasis got up from where he lay across Demetrius and turned to look first at Osorkon, then Dido, who had also been flung into a corner.
She rose, rubbing at her bruises ruefully. ‘Something’s made them angry,’ she observed.
Amasis peered at Osorkon. ‘Do you think the others escaped?’ he asked tentatively. ‘We couldn’t escape, could we? We couldn’t leave Demetrius. Could we? Could we?’
Dido gave him a tired grin, then reached down to ruffle his hair as if he was only a small boy. ‘We couldn’t,’ she agreed. ‘We had to stay behind.’
‘But they’re going to kill us now,’ he said. ‘Demetrius is on the verge of death, and we’re to be taken to the temple of Tanit and killed.’ He looked at Osorkon, who had sat up but was avoiding their gaze. ‘What do you think happened to him?’ he added. ‘He was taken away before the others escaped.’
Dido addressed Osorkon in Punic. The chieftain looked up and stared sullenly at her. He muttered something.
‘The escape attempt failed,’ she told Amasis. She asked another question, and Osorkon shrugged, said something else. ‘He thinks all the others were killed.’
Amasis gasped. He looked at Demetrius. The old man was still breathing, but he seemed to have fallen into the kind of sleep you don’t wake from. Uncle Gaius had vanished. Now Vabalathus, Claudius Mercator, and Menander had all died in that failed escape attempt. An unworthy voice within told him he had been right not to join them. Now only he and Dido survived—and Osorkon was back with them. But the Garamantian hadn’t been part of the original caravan. He hadn’t been at Ammonium when the diviner gave his divination.
‘Only one of us will return,’ he whispered to himself in horror. He looked from Dido to Demetrius again. ‘Only one.’
‘What’s that you’re saying?’ Dido asked, coming to kneel beside him. ‘He’s not telling me anymore,’ she added, with a nod at the sullen looking Garamantian. ‘I think he’s got something to hide about his part in the escape attempt. And Demetrius isn’t saying much either. And you?’
‘I said,’ Amasis gazed at this hulking female with the gentle look in her eyes, ‘that only one of us will return.’
‘What’s that?’ she said uneasily. ‘Turned prophet now?’
‘You don’t remember the diviner?’ he said. ‘At the oasis. The temple of Jupiter Ammon.’
‘Oh,’ she said, nodding slowly. ‘Oh yes. I remember. And you think it’s true? Only one of us will return from this cursed expedition?’
Amasis gave a hollow laugh. ‘I didn’t know whether to believe it or not,’ he said. ‘I mean, you’re told to believe the god and the priests and everything they say, but my uncle…’ He broke off suddenly.
‘Go on,’ she said, her voice as gentle as her eyes.
‘I wish I knew if he was alive or not,’ he said wretchedly. ‘If I knew for sure, I’d pray to Osiris for his soul. But he didn’t believe in that.’
‘Tiro didn’t believe anything much,’ said Dido. ‘Not in the gods, not in prophecy or magic.’
‘Do you believe?’ Amasis asked.
She nodded decisively. ‘I believe in the gods,’ she said. ‘I believe in Celestial Juno, and all the rest. I used to pray to them all the time. They kept me alive when…’
‘When what?’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ she said moodily.
‘Why do you call my uncle by that name?’ he asked her. ‘Tiro?’
She laughed. ‘Why do you call him “uncle”?’ she asked. ‘You’re not Roman: he’s not Egyptian. You can’t be related. Can you?’
The youth shrugged his shoulders. ‘He’s not a blood relation,’ he admitted. ‘But I call a lot of men uncle.’
She grimaced. ‘You’re not his catamite, are you?’ she said. ‘Not like the others think? Thought,’ she corrected herself with another grimace.
Amasis shook his head vigorously. ‘No! He’s a friend of the family. He worked with my Uncle Ozy
mandias. I think my aunt Nitocris worked with them sometimes too.’
She eyed him quietly. ‘Do you know what he does?’ she asked. ‘You know he’s not a rich Roman aristocrat just as much as I do.’
He frowned. ‘He works for the emperor,’ he said. ‘But why do you call him Tiro? You know him from another time, don’t you?’
She nodded, and took a deep breath. ‘Amasis, until this summer I worked as a gladiatrix...’
‘Really?’ Amasis’ eyes were big and round. ‘In the arena? You fought lions and things?’
She scratched her head. ‘You’ve never been to the arena, have you?’
He shook his head. ‘Only the races. They only let citizens in the arena.’
‘Not in the crowd, no,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I didn’t fight animals, that’s a venator’s job. No, I fought men. And other women, occasionally.’
‘But now you work as a caravan guard?’
She nodded. ‘I had to get away from all that,’ she said. ‘During the summer, during the inundation, things got too hot for me.’
Amasis looked away. ‘There was a gladiators’ revolt, I heard,’ he murmured. ‘The gladiators and the Bucolics, those river pirates from the Delta. They were marching on Alexandria. That was the rumour in the marketplace. I was scared! But nothing happened.’
She nodded. ‘They were defeated before they reached the city. But none of that would have happened if it hadn’t been for your Uncle Gaius.’
‘What did he do?’ Amasis asked wonderingly.
‘He penetrated the conspiracy,’ she said. ‘To do that he had to work as a gladiator. An apprentice gladiator, if you like, a novice. People call them tyros, and that’s what we called him.’ She nodded. ‘That was how I came to meet him.’
‘How dangerous it all sounds.’ Amasis narrowed his eyes. ‘You were part of this conspiracy?’
She looked away and sighed. ‘I was a fool. I worked for them, for a man they call Arctos, but he betrayed me.’ Unconsciously she rubbed at the scar on her belly, which had been inflamed by the filthy conditions in the cell. ‘So I betrayed Arctos in return,’ she added. ‘I told your uncle all I knew, and he rushed off to the rescue of the empire, leaving me in the marshes to die.’
‘He left you to die?’ Amasis was shocked. ‘That doesn’t sound like my uncle!’
‘Face up to it,’ she said bitterly. ‘He left me dying.’ Her face softened, and shrugged. ‘He had work to do. His precious empire to save. And he thought I was dying anyway.’
‘You weren’t,’ Amasis suggested.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I survived the wound. I’m tough. That’s one reason why I became a gladiatrix.’
‘But why did you join this plot in the first place?’ Amasis asked. ‘I heard they were planning to kill the emperor, who was supposed to be coming to Egypt.’
She looked away. ‘I didn’t know the whole story,’ she said. ‘Arctos didn’t let everyone in on his secrets. Tiro had to work it out from what I could tell him. You ask me why I joined the plot. Well, why did I become a gladiatrix?’
Amasis was puzzled. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Is this a riddle?’
‘More a rhetorical question,’ she said. ‘I grew up in Cyrene, before it was destroyed in the Judaean Revolt, but I’m of Punic stock. My family was impoverished, and I was sold into slavery when I was still a little girl. My Roman master, he…’ She halted, and swallowed several times before continuing. ‘I was a young girl, but already I was big for my age. He thought I was older, maybe. Well, I showed him who was boss. He grew so afraid of me, he sold me on. He had a lot of trouble, too. No one would take me on, until a gladiator impresario came to town…’
‘You’re a slave?’ Amasis said in sudden horror.
She shook her head. ‘I’m a freedwoman,’ she told him. ‘I earned the wooden sword for my work in the arena. Camilla the Amazon Queen they called me. I appeared in amphitheatres from Alexandria to Carthage. Oh, we went to Antioch a couple of times, too. Yes,’ she gave a cracked laugh. ‘I was freed. Lucia Apuleia Camilla is my Roman name, though I prefer Dido. I’m a citizen, you know? I can vote.’ She nodded several times. ‘I’m privileged.’ She paused. ‘Except…’
‘Yes, you are privileged,’ Amasis said. ‘My uncle Ozymandias, he was a slave and now he’s a citizen. He helps Uncle Gaius by working for the emperor. But why did you join a conspiracy?’
‘At the time, it seemed like a good idea. They said that gladiators were better people than others, than the citizens who never risk their own lives. It made sense at the time. And I was angry, even if I had been freed. I hate—hated—Rome.’
‘But you helped my uncle defeat the conspiracy,’ said Amasis. ‘So that’s alright.’
Her eyes were bright. Suddenly she laughed. ‘It’s alright, yes,’ she said. ‘I’m a loyal citizen these days, naturally. All that’s behind me. Thanks to your uncle. He made me see the truth.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Amasis firmly. ‘I just wish I knew where he was! I expect he’s going to come and rescue us,’ he added.
She shook her head. ‘He’s gone to join the others. On the other side of Death’s dark river, as the Greek would put it.’ She indicated Demetrius’ unmoving form.
Amasis shook his head. ‘He’ll come for us,’ he insisted. ‘After all, isn’t that what you thought?’
‘Me?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘That’s why you stayed behind when you could have escaped with the others. Wasn’t it? That was why I stayed behind. You talked me out of it, admittedly, but I made up my mind when I realised that Uncle Gaius would come for us.’ He leaned closer, and glanced in the direction of Osorkon. The Garamantian was gazing out of the barred gate with a hopeless expression in his face. ‘I’m glad we didn’t go with them,’ he added. ‘But, well…’
‘Only one of us will return,’ she intoned. ‘You, do you think? Or me? Or maybe it will be Demetrius!’
‘Don’t joke about it,’ Amasis said angrily.
‘I’m sorry, boy,’ she said. ‘Just trying to lighten the mood.’
Amasis accepted her apology. Osorkon was shuffling moodily round the cell.
‘It needs lightening,’ he admitted. ‘But Uncle Gaius will come for us. You just see it. He’ll be smashing that gate down any second now, and we’ll ride off back to Egypt before the next sunset.’
‘What if he doesn’t?’ Dido asked quietly.
‘He must!’ Amasis protested. ‘Otherwise…’ He stared at her. ‘Otherwise we’ll be taken to the temple.’
She nodded. ‘We’ll be taken to the temple of Tanit. Do you think you could fight your way out of there?’
‘Fight?’ His eyes widened. ‘Oh yes! That’s a good idea. We could fight our way out. Like Alexander the Great! You, me...’ He glanced up. ‘Even Osorkon.’
The Garamantian was gazing down at Demetrius. Amasis moved protectively to the silent old man’s side, and mopped at his brow with his rag. His face fell. He touched Demetrius’ cheek. His eyes met Osorkon’s. The Garamantian nodded starkly, and stamped away.
‘Is Demetrius…?’ Dido asked.
‘Yes,’ said Amasis in a choked voice. ‘He must have… while we were talking.’
Osorkon had reached the far side of the cramped cell. Hearing the others talking, he swung round and barked something harsh and angry. Dido looked up, her face pale. She spoke with him at some length. Snivelling, Amasis brushed away his tears and looked worriedly from one to the other.
Osorkon’s reply was curt. Dido sighed and glanced down at Demetrius. She reached forward and gently closed the corpse’s staring eyes.
‘What did Osorkon say?’ Amasis asked her.
Dido smiled bleakly at him. ‘He says the Greek was lucky,’ she told him. ‘Death took him painlessly in his sleep. It will take us tonight, he says, when we are brought to the temple, in fear and agony. Do not shed tears for him, boy, he exhorts you. Weep for your own fate, he says. Weep for yourself.’
Ama
sis gazed in horror at the Garamantian.
—26—
Phazania, 22nd December 124 AD
The troglodyte army marched through the dawn, across the sandy plain towards the more fertile countryside surrounding Garama. Occasional herders had been seen in the distance, but they had broken and run, abandoning their cattle on the appearance of this well-disciplined army traversing the dusty murk. Flaminius worried about them. They would be likely to raise the alarm. But they already anticipated attack.
‘The Garamantes who fled last night will have returned to the city,’ Menander said as they marched. ‘We must be prepared.’
‘All you need is to keep the Garamantian forces ready while a small force makes its way down the well and into the irrigation channel.’ Flaminius did not mention how disadvantaged the troglodytes would be on foot against chariots. ‘The real fighting will begin when we reach the dungeons—or the temple.’
Flaminius had all about the escape, and how Amasis had remained behind. Was it because he wanted to tend Demetrius? Or had the lad suspected that the whole escape had been a trap? The first suggested the boy had more compassion than Flaminius had thought, the latter suggested more cunning. Neither rang true. And then there was Dido. Why had she remained behind?
‘I’ve already told you,’ Menander said. ‘I have no wish to sacrifice my own people in order to help free a few foreign interlopers.’
‘From what you say,’ Flaminius remarked, ‘the Garamantes are on the edge of civil war. They’re your people’s traditional enemy, right? So if Fate smiles on you, you may wind up neutralising that threat.’
‘My brother spoke in such a magniloquent way,’ Menander mused, ‘and my people cheered him on for it. He believes it himself, that the Garamantes owe him tribute. His raids have cost my people dear. When I spoke out against it, spoke of returning to the mountains of the south from which we came, I was shouted down. He poisoned my people’s minds against me, and I was cast from the throne that was mine by right, exiled from the city. I think he had already told the slavers who caught me that I would be coming. But now they have known several years of his rule…’
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