Cleopatra's Heir

by Gillian Bradshaw

  “Get him off the street this instant!” shrieked the man in crimson.

  The puzzled attendant flinched, summoned several of his fellows with a wave. The man in crimson looked at Melanthe. He had weak blue eyes in a pinched face. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing with this … this person?”

  He was the second cousin. Melanthe was all at once certain of it. He looked exactly as she’d imagined. She took a step back, appalled at what she’d done. “Sir,” she said, “who … What … what do you want with my friend?”

  The attendants were clustering around Arion. They pulled his cloak straight, bent over and got their hands under him. His head rolled helplessly.

  “He’s your friend, is he?” asked the man in crimson grimly. “Come with us.”

  Melanthe took another step back. The attendants picked Arion up and carried him out of the portico. “No!” Melanthe shrieked, so loudly that they paused and looked around. She ran over to them, hesitated helplessly: there were five of them, and Arion was deeply unconscious in their hands. She could not take him away from them. “Where are you taking him?” she demanded frantically. “You’re his enemies, aren’t you? Let him go! I’ll call the watch!”

  The men snorted with derision and carried Arion on toward the carriage. The man in crimson came over and caught Melanthe’s arm. “Don’t be a fool!” he snapped. “Do you know who I am?”

  “No,” she replied shortly, “but I can tell you don’t mean any good!”

  “I am Areios Didymos,” said the man in crimson, drawing himself up to his unimpressive full height. “I am a friend of the emperor. All Alexandria knows that. You must come with me, girl, and explain …”

  Melanthe stamped hard on his foot, wrestled her arm free, and bolted.

  She fought her way through the crowd, ignoring the shouts, then hitched up her tunic and dashed along the road. In half a block she found herself bursting onto the carriageway of a much wider street. She darted behind a cart, dodged a horse, skipped over a curb, and arrived under another portico. There she pulled her cloak over her head and forced herself to walk—a brisk, businesslike walk, fast, but with nothing fugitive about it. The portico was crowded, and many of the women and girls had cloaks very similar to her own. She heard more shouting behind her, but she did not look back, and it faded.

  Melanthe kept walking, trembling now. Some of the people were looking at her oddly, and she pulled a fold of linen across her face. Her nose had started to run, and her eyes blurred.

  She should have prevented it. She should have … kept her temper, talked reasonably to one of the other shopkeepers, got a cart and moved Arion quietly, before there was a commotion. She should never have summoned, O sweet Isis, summoned some unknown rich man to help: she should have known that it was dangerous. She’d panicked, she’d lost her head, and now Arion was going to die.

  She had told him that she loved him. He had fallen almost on those words, and when he woke—if he ever woke!—he would be in the hands of his enemy, and she wouldn’t be there, and he would think she’d betrayed him, O Lady Isis!

  But she would fetch help for him. Papa would be able to think of something to do. Arion had saved him once: he’d surely find some way to save Arion. Areios Didymos, the Friend of the Roman emperor—he had to be the second cousin. Everything about him fit what Arion had said, and his name was similar to Arion’s. Families often did use similar names for all their members. Probably Papa had heard of Areios Didymos from his new rich Greek associates. They might have told him something that would be useful. He’d discover some way they could help.

  She bumped into a stout woman with a basket of vegetables. “Careful!” snapped the woman; then, looking at her more closely, “Child, what’s the matter?”

  “I’m lost,” gasped Melanthe, pressing the palms of her hands against the blinding tears. “I need to find my father. His boat is at the Mareotic Harbor, but I don’t know the way.”

  The stout woman tut-tutted, led her to the next corner, and pointed out the way to the harbor gate.

  The Mareotic Harbor looked much as it had when she left it: a maze of boats and quays, warehouses and trolleys and cranes. She hurried through it, blind and stumbling, unable to remember where, among all these barges and skiffs and sailboats, Soteria was moored. Then she heard her name called, and turned, and saw through tears her father running toward her.

  “Papa!” she screamed in relief, and ran to him.

  “Melanthe!” he cried again, and threw his arms around her.

  She clung to him, sobbing bitterly. “It’s all right now,” he told her tenderly. “It’s all right now, Sunbird, you’re safe now.

  It wasn’t all right, but she couldn’t speak.

  Papa held her, rocking back and forth, and eventually led her along the side of the dock, and there was Soteria, and then Tiathres was beside her, and her brothers, and all the others were clustered around, fetching her cold clothes to wipe her face, and cups of watered wine, and telling each other not to crowd her.

  Almost all the others. Harmias, whom she’d last seen lying on the deck with his head covered with blood, was absent.

  “Harmias?” she asked at random, and the sudden quiet told her what had happened even before Papa admitted, “He died before I got back. Oh, my darling girl, we were so afraid for you!” He spoke in the Demotic he very rarely used to her. “My baby. Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”

  “They have Arion,” she told him.

  In the confused silence that followed, she realized that, of course, the others knew only that she’d been dragged screaming from Soteria by a band of robbers. “He—he rescued me,” she tried to explain. “They took me to this ship, and they were going to sell me, but Arion was there. He was going to Cyprus, on the same ship. He told them to let me go, but they wouldn’t, and there was a f-fight. Aristodemos got killed. I …”

  “Aristodemos was there?” asked Papa, his face darkening.

  Melanthe nodded. “He paid them a hundred drachmae to rob Soteria, and he promised them the cargo, only it wasn’t here. He told them to destroy all the papers, but I hid them. You found them, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Papa, and patted her shoulder. “You were a clever girl. The harbor authority was all over us after the robbery. Someone had sent them a letter saying that our cargo was stolen goods from the start. Without those papers we would have been in trouble. I knew Aristodemos was behind it. I told those buggers to arrest him, but they wouldn’t do any such thing, not to a Greek gentleman. He’s dead?”

  “They k-killed him,” Melanthe stammered, remembering it and starting to shake. “I never saw how. I don’t know what happened to his body. He just g-gasped and stopped talking, and they put him on the floor. He was staring and staring, and then I saw that he wasn’t breathing. It must have been a knife. They had knives. Arion had a knife hidden in his clothes, and I didn’t see it until he t-took it out of Nikokrates—he was the chief robber; he was horrible, I’m glad Arion killed him! They were going t-to sell me to a brothel on Cyprus, and Nikokrates got Aristodemos to p-pay him to do that, instead of selling me to you, b-because Aristodemos hated you so much he’d p-pay to make you unhappy.” She swallowed. “And then Kinesias, the ship captain, said he wouldn’t carry Arion, and ordered him to get off the ship.

  “So we left the ship this morning, and Arion’s friend said that Arion was going to kill himself, and he asked me to persuade him not to do it. He was going to go to Cyprus and manage an estate, but he couldn’t, because of the fight, and they said it was too dangerous to arrange another ship, and he didn’t want to get his friends into trouble, so he was going to kill himself. And Arion’s friend said we could help, we could persuade Arion to go back to Coptos with us instead, and his friends would invest in a ship for him—a second ship, Papa, that would make a convoy with Prosperity. So I begged Arion to agree, and finally he said he would explain the whole situation to you first, and we were coming back here so he could
do that, and he had a seizure.” She started to cry again. “He fell over in front of a shop, and the shopkeeper kept kicking him, and everyone was spitting at him and calling him a dirty lunatic and telling me to take him away, but I couldn’t, without a cart, and they wouldn’t lend me one, and this rich man came along, and I thought he would help, but he’s Arion’s second c-cousin, and he t-told his men to take him and put him in the c-carriage, and I c-couldn’t help, and they’re going to k-kill him!” She pressed her hands against her face. “If it weren’t for me, he’d be on his way to Cyprus!”

  “Hush, hush, hush!” said Tiathres, holding her.

  “Calm down,” Papa ordered. “Take a deep breath. Now, do you know that this man was Arion’s second cousin?”

  She felt a rush of desperate relief, and wiped her nose. Papa would think of something to do. “I think he was,” she said eagerly. “He was rich, and he said he was a friend of the emperor. He recognized Arion right away: when he saw him he shouted, ‘O Zeus, it’s impossible, but it is!’ and ordered his people to put Arion in the carriage. He said his name was Areios Didymos, and that’s a lot like Arion’s name.”

  “Areios!” exclaimed someone on the fringe of the group, and she looked up and saw that it was Kleon’s man Apollonios. “Areios is supposed to be the most powerful man in Alexandria!”

  “What do you know of him?” Papa asked quickly. “I’ve heard people mention him a few times since we arrived, but I don’t know anything about him.”

  Apollonios sneered. “I suppose Egyptians never hear about anything. He’s a philosopher. He used to be at the queen’s court, but he never rose very high, so he went to the emperor, and rose right to the top. When Caesar first came into the city, he had Areios beside him in the chariot. He told the city he spared it partly because of Areios’ intercession. Areios has asked Caesar to spare this man or that, and the emperor has given him what he wanted every time. Everyone wants to be his friend. He’s a very, very big man just now.”

  “He’s little and ugly,” Melanthe said hotly. “He tried to put me in the carriage, too, but I got away.”

  “Just as well,” said Apollonios. “That’s not a man to cross.”

  Melanthe glared at him, then looked pleadingly at her father. “What can we do?” she whispered. “It’s my fault this happened. Arion would be safely on his way to Cyprus if it hadn’t been for me.”

  “It’s not your fault that you were kidnapped,” Papa told her, very firmly. He sighed, rubbed his hands through his hair, suddenly looking utterly exhausted. “Sunbird, I don’t know! I … I suppose I could go to Areios and tell him that his cousin isn’t claiming any of the inheritance, that if he lets him go I’ll take him off and he need never see him again.”

  “Are you insane?” demanded Apollonios. “If Areios thinks that epileptic boy is his enemy, then that boy is dead. There isn’t a man in Alexandria will raise a hand to save him. Arion knew that: he told you you didn’t want to touch it. Zeus, even if Areios didn’t do anything to you, you’d have everyone who heard about it making trouble for you in the hope of pleasing him!”

  “I owe the boy!” Papa said, with a glance at Melanthe.

  “It isn’t your cargo!” shouted Apollonios, getting to his feet. “It’s Kleon’s. Kleon sent me to keep an eye on things, and you are not—you are not—going to ruin the whole of a profitable venture for the sake of your daughter’s boyfriend!”

  Melanthe burst into tears again.

  “Arion never injured his cousin,” said Papa quietly. “He does not deserve such hatred.”

  “You don’t know that!” Apollonios snarled. “You don’t know anything at all about Arion, except that he refuses to answer questions!”

  “I know the important things about him,” Papa replied, sharply now. “I know I like him a lot better than I like you.”

  Apollonios sneered. “Yes, that’s been pretty clear for a while. Nice Greek boy with a beautiful voice, well born, well educated, shame about the disease, pity he’s too proud to look at you. Were you hoping to give him to your daughter, or share him with her?”

  Papa jumped to his feet. “You buggering Greek!” he roared. “Don’t you smear me with your own filth!” He waded through the ring of others and swung wildly at Apollonios.

  Apollonios staggered back against the railing, then pushed himself off it again and flung himself back at his adversary. Tiathres screamed. Papa and Apollonios fell to the deck, Papa underneath, both of them cursing and hitting each other.

  All the men except Ezana were Papa’s, and they stood about yelling encouragement to Papa and trying to kick Apollonios.

  Tiathres jumped up, found a bucket, lowered it off the side of the boat, heaved it up, and flung the dirty harbor water over the combatants. They broke apart, coughing. Ezana slid in next to Apollonios, grabbed him, and wrestled him off toward the stern, where he began arguing with him earnestly. Tiathres, meanwhile, dropped to her knees beside her husband and put her arms around him. She began to beg him not to fight, not now, not with his partner’s man. Papa sat dripping in the middle of the stern deck, wiping at a cut on his cheek, swearing, and looking murder at Apollonios.

  Melanthe covered her face. Papa was a man, not a god. She should never have expected him to work a miracle. There would be no rescue. Arion had chosen to help her rather than ensure his own safety, and he would die for it.

  What was more, she realized, with a hot stab of shame, she had abandoned him. If she’d gone with the man in crimson, she might have been able to help—but she’d run away and left him to die alone. She understood now how he had felt in the temple at Ptolemais, when he realized that he’d failed those he’d pledged his heart to; she understood why he’d wanted to die.

  Soteria gradually calmed down. Apollonios was persuaded by his comrade to offer a grudging apology, which was reluctantly accepted. Melanthe lay down in the stern cabin with a sheet over her head. Her father went down to the harbor office and informed the authorities that his daughter had returned safely, and the harbor office offered to inform the city watch, who would want to send someone to ask what had happened to her.

  “If you don’t feel able to speak to them, say,” he told her, when he returned. “I can ask them to come another time.”

  Melanthe took the sheet off her head and looked up at him miserably. His face, which had always seemed to her so wise, was bruised from the fight, and he looked exhausted and ashamed. A trickle of compassion eased its way into the choking pain. He was not a god—but he loved her, and he had been frantic for her safety. He would have helped if he could, even at the risk of his own life.

  She sat up and hugged him, and he held her. “I’m so sorry,” he said vaguely.

  “There’s nothing to be done,” she choked. “I’ll see the watchmen when they come. Papa, what should I tell them about Arion?”

  He let her go, looked at her seriously, blew out his cheeks. “I don’t know,” he said finally.

  “I want to tell them the truth—that he saved me. But if Areios is really so powerful, then that might cause trouble. And I don’t really understand why Arion was on that ship. He said he didn’t want to attract attention, and he was worried about the port authorities, but I don’t understand why. I don’t understand why he couldn’t wait at his friend’s while they looked for another ship, either. There was … there was a lot about it that was strange. And his people killed Aristodemos. That might cause trouble, for him or for his friends.”

  “‘His people’?” Papa asked, confused. “I thought the robbers killed Aristodemos.”

  “No,” said Melanthe. “One of Arion’s people did. I don’t know who they were. They weren’t slaves. They were armed. I saw them holding knives, but there were spears in one of the rooms I saw, too. He had slaves, too, though, about a dozen of them. There were three women who looked after me. He said really they all belonged to a friend of his, and he sent them back to the friend when we left.” She sat silent for a moment. The events of the pr
evious night and morning now seemed dreamlike, unreal, blurred by too much emotion. “He had a cabin with carpets and silver lamps,” she told her father, slowly waking to the strangeness—a strangeness quite independent of her own feelings. “He sent those back to the friend, too. And he had clothes made of silk, which he made them take back, because they’d attract attention. The slaves wanted to send someone with him, to carry his things, but he thought it would attract attention. They all called him ‘lord.’ Even his friend called him that.”

  “Are you certain of this?” Papa asked her, frowning, holding her hands.

  “Yes.” She was frowning as well now. “Arion said he was going to explain it all. He was afraid, though, that you wouldn’t help once you knew the truth. I told him you would.”

  Papa shook his head unhappily. “I want to help, Sunbird. I would have tried. Perhaps there’s still something we can do. You mentioned a friend who was with him. Do you know his name?”

  “Rhodon,” Melanthe said at once. “He was a philosopher. I didn’t like him at first, because he … he didn’t want them to let me off the ship, in … case it attracted attention from the authorities. He told Arion to take me to Cyprus with him instead. But this morning he was very friendly and polite, and he said that you must be a remarkable man, to have impressed Arion so much, and that he wanted to meet you.”

  Papa was surprised, flattered, unhappy. “Rhodon,” he repeated. “I think Arion’s mentioned him. I’ve heard that name.”

  “Arion said he used to be his teacher.”

  Papa frowned. From outside on the quay, there was a shout of alarm.

  They looked at one another, suddenly afraid, and both got up in one movement and went to the door.

  A troop of Romans were quick-marching along the quay, led by an anxious harbor official. There were about thirty of them, in red tunics trimmed with gold, polished strip armor, and shining helmets with tall crests of red horsehair.

  Melanthe gaped. She had not told Areios who she was: this couldn’t be because …