Menches came over. “Those are our new rulers?” he asked. “So it would seem.” Ani looked around for the guy-rope he’d dropped when the Romans first appeared.
“I thought they would take the Greek boy.” Menches sounded disappointed that they hadn’t. Probably he had not understood enough of the conversation to realize that his employer was in danger, too: his command of Greek was largely restricted to the ordering of camels. “What does ‘clessimy’ mean?”
“Clemency. It means mercy. It seems that the new king has decreed that there should be no reprisals against those who fought for the queen.”
“Huh. Better news for the Greeks than for us, if he means it.”
That was true: clemency to the defeated would mean Greek rights and property untouched and no new opportunities for Egyptians. Ani comforted himself with the knowledge that reprisals would have meant not just Arion’s death, but chaos throughout Egypt and a collapse of trade. He sighed and went back to work on the tent.
They had just got it up when he remembered the light he had seen in the north the night he found Arion: the light of a great fire, a couple of miles away up a remote mountainside. That, he realized, had been the funeral pyre of King Ptolemy Caesar, the last of the Lagid dynasty.
He had never entirely believed in the divinity of kings. The gods raised up kings and queens to be rulers of men, but the gods brought them down again at their own pleasure. Cleopatra had claimed to be the living incarnation of Isis, and no doubt that was true, in the sense that the goddess had granted her power over Egypt—but it was Isis alone who governed the thunderbolt and could overcome Fate, and she had ordained an end to Cleopatra’s reign. He pondered that a moment: the Lagid kings fallen; the order of the world changed forever. The gods alone remained: great was the goddess.
He himself must have been one of the only Egyptians to have seen the funeral of the last of the Ptolemies. He would have to tell Melanthe: she would understand what it meant, to have seen the end of an era with his own eyes.
Tiathres would just be pleased that he was home safely. Tiathres would kiss him, draw him into the dark little back room which was their private place, and welcome him home into the sweet sanctuary of her own body. Tiathres, he thought fondly, always had had good sense.
CHAPTER IV
Archedamos’ doctor arrived early in the morning, when the Egyptians were still feeding the camels and cleaning up about the camp.
Caesarion had spent a miserable night tossing and turning on his bedroll, trying to find some position where the pain from the wound was bearable. It burned him; his head ached savagely and he felt very sick. By the time the doctor arrived, he was certain that he was going to die. He wished fervently that he’d done it before, and spared himself the tortures and humiliations of the past few days. He’d had to beg Ani’s pardon for a ludicrous suspicion, he’d been spat upon and, apparently, kicked by an innkeeper, and been called a bastard and a ‘little bantam cock’ by a swaggering centurion. It would have been better to have died.
Even more humiliating—and far more frightening—was a horrible sense that his very identity was slipping. As far as the world around him was concerned, Ptolemy Caesar was dead, and he was Arion, a foolish young Alexandrian who was no threat to anyone. If he lived he would have to take the job Ani had offered him. He had, he realized with horror, absolutely no idea how else to support himself—and he wanted to go back to Alexandria: there was nothing for him anywhere else.
Alexandria would be dangerous, of course. There were far too many people there who knew him, and now the city was in Roman hands. His mother was there, though, and his brothers and sister, together with whatever remained of the royal court. He had nothing to live for and no way to escape, so he might as well try to accomplish something worthy of a king before he died.
If he set off for Alexandria as a camel-driver’s secretary, however, who would he be by the time he reached the city? Would he still be Caesarion, a deposed king hoping somehow to free his mother, or at least his brother, from captivity? Or would he be indeed Arion, a feeble and epileptic ghost, helped out of pity and ridiculed out of scorn? Better, much better, to die here in Berenike.
To die from an infected wound, though, burning and stinking and in pain—it was a horrible end. Perhaps, though, it was what he deserved, since he had refused the royal death that had been offered him first.
The doctor, however, was optimistic. “There is some infection,” he announced, after a careful examination. “However, it is still in its early stages, and I judge it can be controlled by cleaning and proper care, combined with rest and a low and cooling diet.” He pronounced the wound itself not too dangerous: “The lower cut is deep, but is confined to the flesh between the ribs: it has not penetrated any of the vitals. The upper stroke has cracked a rib, but apart from that, is of no significance.”
He gave Caesarion a drug to reduce the fever and dull the pain, a bitter-tasting concoction of opium and black hellebore. Then he cleaned the injury with a solution of vinegar and biting herbs and stitched the torn flesh together, leaving channels for the pus to drain.
Caesarion endured it in silence, pressing the remedy against his face. The drug dulled the pain and his mind both. He felt as though he were suspended in a gray fog by a hook in his side—suspended and twirling slowly in a disintegrating world.
The doctor finished stitching and applied a poultice. “What is this?” he asked, taking the remedy from his lax grasp.
“I need that,” Caesarion protested in alarm, reaching for it.
The doctor opened the little bag and shook some of the contents into his palm. “Cardamon,” he commented. “Gum ammoniacum. Bryony. Cinquefoil. What’s this, cyclamen?”
“I need that,” Caesarion repeated, more urgently.
The doctor sniffed at the wizened chunk of vegetable matter. “No, peony root … These are heating and drying herbs, no help for wounds or fevers. Why do you have these?”
Ani emerged out of the grayness. “He has the sacred disease.
The doctor stared. Then he tipped the herbs back into the little bag and silently handed it back. Caesarion pressed it to his face and drew a deep breath of the piercing scent. The world was still swirling.
“I should have been told this before,” the doctor remarked irritably. “It affects his treatment. How long has he suffered this disorder?”
Ani shrugged and grimaced in expressive ignorance. The doctor turned back to Caesarion and repeated the question.
Caesarion was still spinning in the fog. “It began when I was thirteen,” he answered dreamily. “I remember coming into the house, and then I was in bed, with a doctor looking at me. I hurt all over and my clothes were wet. They said I fell down. It can’t be cured. They’ve tried. We consulted lots of doctors. They tried drugs, and they tried bleeding and purging, but nothing worked. One of them wanted to cauterize my brain, but Mother wouldn’t let him. I don’t have fits that often.”
“How often?”
“At home, I fall down maybe once a month …” He came back to the present with a jerk. He was not supposed to discuss his condition with anyone unless the queen had approved it. “Have you sworn the oath?” he demanded.
“Which oath?” asked the doctor. He was frowning. He was an elderly man, well dressed, bearded like a philosopher. He looked wise and kind, but Caesarion never trusted that in a doctor. They all tried to look that way—their livelihoods depended on it—but some of the treatments they recommended were little short of torture.
“The Hippocratic oath. ‘Whatever I see or hear, professionally or privately, which ought not to be divulged, I will keep secret and tell no one.’ You must tell no one that I have the disease.”
“I have sworn the oath,” the doctor said reluctantly. “However, in this case, Archedamos is paying my fee, and he asked me to report to him.”
Ani appeared out of the gray again. “Archedamos wants to know about the wound,” he pointed out. “There’s no need to
tell him about the disease. Come, the boy’s ashamed of it, you can understand that, can’t you? He doesn’t want the whole town pointing him out as an epileptic and spitting at him.”
The doctor appeared to accept this. Caesarion was vaguely aware of him giving Ani instructions as to his care—drugs, diet, dressings for the wound. “I’ll be back tomorrow morning,” he finished. Caesarion hung suspended in the fog, twirling slowly.
After an indeterminate time, Ani appeared again and began doing something to the dressing. “You shouldn’t have told him I have the disease,” Caesarion reproached him.
“Told who?” asked Ani.
He realized that the doctor had left hours ago. I should not have accepted the drug, he thought, though without urgency. It’s too strong. I may give myself away. I must not. “That doctor.”
Ani gave a snort of disgust. “Boy, he’s a doctor! He had to know. You heard him yourself: it affects your treatment.” There was a wonderful coolness up his side as a fresh poultice settled on the hot flesh. “At home you fell down once a month, eh? You’ve had two fits since I met you.”
More than that, he thought dreamily—but the small seizures had passed unnoticed. “It was easier at home,” he said faintly. “It wasn’t so hot. The condition is exacerbated by hunger and by thirst, by too much exertion or too little, by suffering and by strong passion.”
“Wasn’t a good idea to become a soldier, then, was it?” The Egyptian’s face hung over him, sharply etched and unnaturally distinct. “Passion exasperates it? Isis and Serapis, what does that mean? You’re supposed to avoid women?”
He thought of Rhodopis, with whom he’d fallen in love when they were both sixteen. She had such a beautiful laugh—such a joyful, free, uninhibited laugh, such bright eyes, such lovely breasts … She’d been a palace slave, however, and when his mother found out that they were sleeping together, Rhodopis had been sold in the public slave market. “I’m sorry,” Cleopatra had told him, when he went to her in tears to protest, “but you know that it would have aggravated your condition.”
“I’m supposed to avoid women,” he agreed bitterly.
“Sweet Lady Isis, what a fate!”
He thought Ani said something else then, but when he asked him what, he found that the Egyptian was no longer there.
He woke without being aware that he’d slept, and Ani was there again. The world had stopped whirling, and his head was clear enough for him to realize that this was because the drug was wearing off. The pain, however, did not seem nearly as hot as it had been that morning.
“Arion,” said the Egyptian nervously, “I need some help.”
You must, Caesarion thought sourly, if you’re willing to use my name.
“Archedamos invited me to dinner,” Ani went on. “It’s a Greek dinner. Should I wear a cloak?”
Caesarion was quiet a moment, trying to order his disjoined mind, to work out why he’d been woken up for such a trivial question. Ani watched him anxiously, and he realized that for Ani it wasn’t trivial at all: the overbearing caravan-master was completely daunted by the invitation to a dinner party. It was a surprising realization, and a gratifying one: Ani might be sharp, shrewd, and forceful, but he was no gentleman and he knew it. For a moment Caesarion contemplated misleading the fellow so he’d make a fool of himself—but no, he couldn’t do that. As Ani kept reminding him, he was in debt to the wretch for his life. “What time is it?” he asked.
“Now? About two hours till sunset.”
“No, the dinner! What time does the dinner begin?”
“Oh. In an hour.”
“And how many guests?”
“I … He said he was inviting Kleon, the captain of the Prosperity.”
“Who?”
“The captain of the Prosperity! Sweet Isis, the man this whole venture depends on! I want him to accept me as an investor, a partner, and not just a customer!”
“Archedamos is unlikely to invite just two guests,” Caesarion said judiciously. “That would leave the couches unbalanced. And the hour is early for an informal occasion, though not early enough for a banquet. There will probably be six to supper, and three courses. You should wear a good cloak, but you shouldn’t bring a garland.”
Ani looked more anxious than ever. “O gods, it’s going to be formal? And I have to wear a long cloak? I can never get those god-hated cloaks to hang properly. Couches, you said? I’m going to have to eat lying down—in a bit of god-hated Greek drapery?”
Caesarion sat up, found that he was light-headed but not too uncomfortable. “Fetch the cloak,” he ordered. “I’ll tell you what to do.”
ANI SET OFF for the dinner party three-quarters of an hour later, uncomfortably swathed in a long cloak, his head swimming with instructions. Caesarion lay down again, tired but satisfied: he had saved his host from making a fool of himself, which did something to redress the balance between them.
One of the Egyptian camel-drivers—Imouthes, the young man—came into the tent carrying a bowl of broth. He set it down by Caesarion’s head, stood a moment frowning, then left in silence. “I gave it to him,” Caesarion heard him say from just outside the tent.
“Good,” said Menches, the older man. “If he gave Master Ani bad advice, I hope it turns his stomach.”
He spoke, like his son, in Demotic. Caesarion wondered if they realized that he could overhear and understand. Greeks from the cities usually spoke no Demotic at all. The queen, however, had learned the language of her subjects—the first of her dynasty to do so—and she had insisted that her son learn it as well. He picked up the bowl and sniffed it cautiously. It smelled harmless—pleasant, in fact: barley broth sweetened with a little honey.
“Why did the master need advice on how to eat dinner?” asked Imouthes. It sounded as though the two were settling to eat their own supper just outside the tent.
Menches spat—a loud hawking and a distinguishable plop of spittle striking sand. “You ever been invited to dinner by a Greek? They don’t usually ask Egyptians, not even the likes of Master Ani. These Greeks have rules about how to sit and how to chew and which hand to use for what, and if a man doesn’t know them, they think he’s a dirty peasant. They invent rules like that, to set themselves apart. No Greek ever wants an Egyptian as a friend and partner.”
“You don’t think Master Ani will get his partnership?” The young man sounded disappointed.
“Better if he doesn’t!” Menches replied darkly.
“What’s wrong with Master Ani becoming a rich merchant?” Imouthes protested. “He’s come by his money fairly, and he always spends it where it helps his own.”
There was a silence, and then Menches said, in a significant tone, “Why did he hire just us and our own camels, when he really needed another man and at least three more beasts?”
“Because he didn’t want to hire from Sisois,” said Imouthes, plainly mystified.
“And why didn’t he want to hire from Sisois?”
“Because Sisois is a fornicating dog,” replied Imouthes promptly.
Menches gave an abrupt bark of laughter. “Apart from that!”
There was a puzzled silence.
“Because Sisois serves Aristodemos,” Menches explained triumphantly. “If Master Ani had gone to him for camels, Aristodemos would have found out what he was up to.”
“So?” asked Imouthes. “Aristodemos isn’t investing this year. Why should he care what Master Ani does?”
“Why should an impotent man care if somebody else sleeps with his wife? He does care, that’s all. Aristodemos isn’t going to like this, and Master Ani knows that. He wants it all done before Aristodemos finds out, because he thinks that then Aristodemos will have to swallow it. I say, though, that if it’s just a question of Ani buying up one cargo, Aristodemos will swallow it—but if it’s the partnership, there’ll be trouble. The Romans said that their policy will be ‘clemency’—and that means the Greeks keep everything, and that means that Aristodemos will want to put money i
nto trade, after all. The Prosperity has done four voyages for him. It’s a good ship, with an experienced captain who knows the coasts and the people. Aristodemos won’t give it up without a fight—not to an Egyptian. And if it comes to a fight, he’ll win, won’t he? He’s richer than Master Ani, and all the magistrates are Greek. No, it would be better for Ani if this ship captain decides he’s a dirty peasant, and that he wants to look for a Greek partner.”
They began to talk about the caravan-masters and merchants of Coptos, and Caesarion stopped paying attention. He drank the barley broth, rolled over onto his good side, and tried to sleep.
He was startled out of a doze a few hours later to find that it was dark and that Ani and another man were standing over him with a lantern. The light from it jittered drunkenly about the shadowy tent, and there was a strong smell of wine.
“Good health!” said Ani. He sounded extremely cheerful. “You feeling any better?”
Caesarion pushed himself up onto an elbow and squinted at him. The man beside Ani squatted down by the bedroll. He was a balding, big-boned man of middle age, probably Greek, wearing a good cloak askew; his forearms were scarred and the hands draped loosely over his knees were heavily callused. “Ani says you’ve agreed to write his letters,” he said. His breath reeked of wine, and he seemed every bit as cheerful as Ani. Caesarion suddenly suspected who he was.
“This is Kleon,” Ani confirmed happily, also squatting down. “Captain of Prosperity. He wanted to meet you.”
“Archedamos thinks you were a companion of the king,” confided Kleon, loud with wine. “A Kinsman, or at least a First Friend.”
Caesarion gazed at him in alarm. Archedamos had decided he was a high-ranking member of the royal court? How? Why? Were his accent, his loyalty to the queen’s cause, and the position he’d claimed, as “aide to Eumenes,” enough, or did Archedamos remember seeing him? He could not remember ever meeting Archedamos, but that meant nothing: he’d often stood before the crowds on ceremonial occasions and been stared at by thousands. If Archedamos had seen him, and remembered that he was a member of the court, would he eventually remember more?
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