Caesarion pressed his hands together, trying to keep his face still. Trace the girl. An Egyptian girl, who said her father was a Coptos merchant …
O Zeus, knowing that, they could trace Melanthe. Ani had made a stir about her disappearance, and the guard had been looking for her. Any merchant from Coptos would use the Mareotic Harbor, and there were not many such merchants about at the moment.
“I’ve already told you,” he said, managing to keep his voice steady, “the girl’s nobody. I never told her or her father anything about myself.”
Octavian and Agrippa both looked back at him. He realized, with a sick lurch, that he should have volunteered nothing. They had assumed that she was unimportant, and he had just showed them that she was not.
“She was with you long enough to know who you were visiting, was she?” Agrippa asked, smiling for the first time.
Melanthe did know who else had helped him. She had met Rhodon. He had tried not to name Archibios in front of her, but probably she had heard the name, from the slaves, if from no one else. She probably didn’t even understand what would happen to the men if she named them, but if she did, and if she tried to keep silent, she would be tortured. The scruples which protected him would not extend to an Egyptian girl at all.
He was going to destroy everyone who had helped him—Rhodon, his red-haired mistress, his little children; Archibios, that loyal and generous old man; Ani; Tiathres and Serapion and little Isisdoros; the slaves and helpers; beautiful Melanthe, who had promised she would love him whatever he told her about himself. They were all going to die—because they had made the huge mistake of helping him.
He imagined them using the irons on Melanthe.
“Please,” he heard himself say, and heard his voice crack. “The only offense these people have committed is to help me. The girl and her family don’t even know who I am. They are not your enemies, Caesar. I beg you, do not harm them.”
There was a silence, and then Octavian asked incredulously, “You beg me?”
“I beg you!” Caesarion repeated recklessly. “Do you want me to kneel? To prostrate myself? I will, if you will spare them. The shame will be yours, Caesar, for requiring it.” He dropped to his knees. “I beg you, Caesar, show mercy to innocent people who have committed no crime against you!”
Octavian took a step back in alarm. “Get up!” he ordered. “I do not require it.”
“Swear that you will punish no one merely for helping me!”
“You are in no position to make demands!” Agrippa broke in angrily.
“I am not demanding,” Caesarion told him fiercely. “I am begging. I am a Lagid, and I am on my knees, begging your friend to spare people who have never harmed him in any way at all. O gods, witness it!”
“Get up!” Octavian cried. “Apollo! I did not ask this!”
Agrippa hurried out of the room.
“You did not ask this,” Caesarion agreed, meeting the emperor’s eyes. “You asked instead that I betray my friends. You felt no shame in asking it, or in threatening me with torture when I refused. Are you ashamed now, because you have forced me to beg you for mercy for them—no, it is not even mercy! It is mercy to spare the guilty, but to spare the innocent is justice, Caesar! Will you not grant it?”
Agrippa came back in with two men in the strip armor and old-fashioned high-crested helmets of the Praetorian Guard. From the amount of gold on their harness, they were both high-ranking. “Take him out,” he ordered them, pointing to Caesarion. “Keep him in the private corridor outside this room until we summon you. No one is to come near him or speak to him, and you are to tell no one anything that you may see or hear in connection with him—not your brothers or lovers, not your own officers. He is Ptolemy Caesar, the son of Cleopatra, and no rumor of his survival must reach the city. I will send Longinus to you presently with some shackles for him.”
The two guards stared at Caesarion in shock, but they saluted Agrippa and stamped over. Caesarion got to his feet as they reached him, knowing that the alternative was to be dragged off on his knees. He did not resist as they took hold of his arms. They marched him over to the small dark door. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Octavian was still watching him. Their eyes met and held as the door opened and he was forced through; and then the door shut and he was trapped in the dark passage with the guards to secure him there and no hope at all.
CHAPTER XIV
The arrest in Ptolemais had been worse, Ani told himself, watching as the Romans secured Soteria and posted a guard on it. There’d been shouting, blows, screaming children. The soldiers making the arrest had barely spoken Greek, and everything had been confusion and pain. This was very orderly: “Are you Ani son of Petesuchos, a merchant from Coptos?” asked the commanding officer, in good Greek. “Is this your daughter? We have orders to arrest you.” They would not say why he was being arrested, but they were willing to explain—without shouting!—that this was because they’d not been informed themselves. A couple of the men leered at Melanthe, but their officer rebuked them. They carefully ascertained who everyone was, checked that there was no one missing, and bound each man in turn, neatly and without violence.
In a way, though, the very restraint was frightening. Ptolemais had been what an Egyptian expected of Greek justice, but this orderliness, this methodical pinning down of everyone and everything involved—this had the feeling of an action from above, commanded by a power the soldiers themselves were afraid of. And this time, they were arresting everyone. Even Tiathres. Even the children.
One of the Romans finished making an inventory of the boat’s documents. He signed it, set it on top of the sheaf of papyri, and put it in the strongbox. He tucked the strongbox under his arm and nodded to the officer in command. The officer called an order and the troop set off, the Egyptians roped together in the middle and the Romans flanking them.
Ani had been given the position of lead prisoner in respect of his status. Like all the men, his hands had been tied behind his back; a rope around his neck secured him—to their mutual dismay—to Apollonios, who was next in line. The women and children had been left unbound, the children because they were too small and the women because they were needed to look after the children. Tiathres and the nurse took turns carrying Isisdoros, who was too young to walk far, and Melanthe clasped Serapion’s hand tightly. The little boy had cried when they tied up his father, but he was not crying now, only staring with huge frightened eyes.
Ani’s position placed him near the Roman officer. When they were under way he hurried to the limit of the rope, ignoring Apollonios’ protest, and called out, “Sir—please?”
The officer glanced back at him disapprovingly.
“Sir, where are you taking us?” Ani asked.
“The palace,” was the short reply.
“The palace?” Ani repeated incredulously. “Why?”
“I’ve already told you. I obey my orders. I don’t ask my commander to explain them. Be quiet.”
“But, sir, we are common, ordinary people!”
“If there has been a mistake, they will sort it out when we arrive. Be quiet.”
It was a long walk: through the Mareotic Gate, up Soma Street past the precinct of the royal tombs, past the mausoleum of the city’s founder, Alexander the Great, past the great Museum and the famous Library. The streets grew steadily wider, the buildings which flanked them more splendid. Ani’s bonds rubbed his wrists raw, and his shoulders started to ache from walking with his hands behind his back. He found, though, that he did not notice it as much as he should have done: too much of himself was stifled by a sense of horrified awe. It was as though he had received some terrible and vital revelation, but he had somehow forgotten it—or as though the part of himself which had grasped it was too appalled to yield it up.
They came at last to a wall, and to a gate guarded by men in the same uniform worn by their captors. There the Roman troop halted with a double stamp, and the prisoners stumbled to a stop.
The officer turned and looked down at the little boy with a grim smile. “They will let you in today, child. If you are lucky, they may even let you out again.” He marched over to the gate and spoke to the guards, and the great iron-bound doors swung open to engulf them.
The palace was not a single building but a vast complex. From the gate they could see a mass of domes and porticoes set amid the abundant green of lavish gardens. It was a fantasia of marble and palms, gilding and grapevines, airy and spacious and spectacularly beautiful. Their guards, however, turned to the right, into a courtyard flanked by a barracks and a stable. They halted there and stood in the sun of the barracks yard while the officer went off to report to his superior.
It took a long time. They were all hot, tired, and thirsty from the long walk. Isisdoros began to cry. Tiathres knelt in the dust of the square and rocked him on her lap. The nurse, poor frightened woman, sat curled up with her hands over her head. Melanthe sat down beside her and held Serapion.
At first the Romans ringing them just leaned against their spears, but after a while they allowed the male prisoners to sit down where they were, and half the guards went off and sat down in the shade in front of the west wall of the barracks.
At last the officer came back. With him was a man in a short red cloak and gilded armor—a superior officer of some kind, though Ani did not know enough about Romans to put a name to the rank. The guards in the shade stood up, and the guards on watch prodded the prisoners to make them stand up. The superior officer regarded the Egyptians with distaste. “Which of you is in charge?” he demanded.
Ani straightened his aching shoulders. “I am, sir,” he said. “Ani son of Petesuchos. Sir, I think there has been some mistake. I am a merchant, sir, I …”
“You are from Coptos?” asked the man in gilded armor.
“Yes, sir. I am acting as agent for my partner Kleon, a cap—”
“You have a daughter, about sixteen?”
“Me,” said Melanthe, tugging a fold of her cloak farther over her head.
The man in gilded armor regarded her with narrowed eyes, then nodded. He said something in Latin to the officer who’d arrested them; the officer replied. The commander gave an order, and the officer saluted.
“You and the girl are to come with us,” the officer told Ani. “The others will stay here.”
Serapion began to cry. Tiathres tried to comfort him. As the soldiers untied the rope around his neck and separated him from Apollonios, Ani looked longingly at his wife and sons. He looked back at the officer. “Sir,” he asked humbly, “please may my people have some water to drink?”
The officer hesitated—then snapped his fingers and gave an order in Latin. “I have told the men to fetch water,” he said.
“Thank you,” whispered Ani.
The officer nodded and jerked his hand in the direction of the main gate. Ani bowed his head, and started to walk as he’d been told.
“Not that way!” said the man in gilded armor.
The officer looked startled and confused. His superior snorted, then pointed in the opposite direction—across the barracks square toward the stables. The officer looked still more confused. The commander set off in the direction he’d indicated, and the officer herded Ani and Melanthe after him.
They went into the stable, and there, among the stalls for the horses, was a locked door. The commander took a key from his belt and opened it. A flight of steps ran down into darkness. After the hot sun of the square outside, that entrance looked as black as the mouth of the Underworld. The gilded commander stood aside for them, holding the door and the key, ready to lock it again when they had passed. He spoke briefly to the arresting officer—an order, it sounded like, and a warning.
The officer became afraid. Ani could see the fear settle over him, and felt his own skin prickle cold in response. The Roman glanced at Ani and Melanthe in confusion—then nodded and started down the stairs, his feet loud in the silence.
Melanthe balked, stood trembling at the top of the stairs, gazing down into the darkness. “What is this?” she asked, in a frightened whisper. “What are you going to do to us?”
“This is another way into the palace,” said the commander impatiently. “A private way. You are to see the emperor.”
Her head jerked up, and she stared at him in terror. “The emperor? Why? W-we haven’t done anything!”
Ani felt some balance shift inside himself. Outside in the barracks yard sat his wife and sons; in the Mareotic Harbor his livelihood lay impounded. Before him was only this—a journey into the Underworld, from which it was unlikely he would return. But he had no choice. In his heart he committed himself and his daughter to Isis and Serapis, who alone could overcome Fate. “We’ll find out why they want us soon enough,” he told Melanthe. “Come on, Sunbird. I’ll be right behind you.”
Melanthe caught her breath—then walked slowly down into the darkness. Ani followed her. The gilded commander came last, and paused to lock the door.
The passageway was not, after all, unlit. Shafts at regular intervals allowed daylight to filter in and illumine the smooth flagstones of the floor. The walls were smooth, whitewashed plaster, and from overhead came sounds—horses, at first, and the voices of men; then noises of water, of a garden being dug, of people talking, too remote to be understood. Their own walk was in silence, apart from the sound of their footsteps—the clicking thud of the hobnailed sandals of the two officers, the softer slapping of his own feet and the whisper of Melanthe’s. After a time there was another flight of steps, this time going up, and after that the passage had more the appearance of a corridor, with a boarded floor. It twisted and turned corners, as though it were working its way deep into a building. Sometimes there were windows instead of skylights, but they were always too high up to allow more than a glimpse of treetop or sky. Once there was a door, and the officer, in the lead, paused and looked back questioningly at the man in gilded armor, but the commander shook his head.
Just when it seemed to Ani that the passage would go on forever, they rounded a corner and came upon people. Two of them were soldiers who wore the same uniform as their captors, and stood leaning on their spears; between them another figure sat on the floor, its back against the wall and its head resting on its knees.
“Arion!” cried Melanthe, somehow sensing the identity of what was only a dark shape in a dim corridor.
The figure on the floor lifted his head, and it was indeed Arion. There were leg-irons about his ankles and shackles on his wrists. The faint gray light caught in the gold on his tunic. His face was pale. Then the nearer of his two guards stepped between them and lowered his spear threateningly at the newcomers. “Consistete!” he ordered.
The commander called out something, then squeezed past the prisoners and began speaking to the guard, who raised his spear again at once.
Arion got to his feet, clanking, bracing himself against the wall. All the Romans looked around at him quickly, as though alarmed.
“Melanthe,” he said, in a low, hoarse voice. “Ani.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“Tace!” a guard told him urgently.
“You should have left me in the road by Kabalsi,” said Arion, ignoring him. “I wish you had.”
Ani expected the guards to hit him, to threaten him into silence—but they did not. It was as though they were afraid of him. Instead, one of them gestured urgently for the newcomers to go past. The officer hurried by, and the commander caught Melanthe’s arm and dragged her after him. She dug in her heels.
“I’m so sorry!” she told Arion breathlessly. “If it wasn’t for me you’d be on your way to Cyprus.”
Arion gave a sick smile and shook his head. The man in armor hauled Melanthe on by brute force, past Arion. Ani was now last. He thought of saying somethi
ng, but he didn’t know what to say, and it looked as if Arion’s guards would hit him if he said anything, so he edged past in silence. The corridor was narrow, and his shoulder almost brushed Arion’s chest. The young man’s eyes were fixed on him with a desperate intensity, anguished and ashamed. He wanted to stop, to take the boy’s arm and tell him it was all right—but it was not all right, and he could not, his hands were tied.
He was past. Behind him, Arion slumped to the floor with another clank, and buried his head in his shackled hands.
There was a door at the end of the corridor. The man in gilded armor knocked on it, and it opened.
The room beyond was about the size of an ordinary dining room. On the wall, facing the door by which they entered, was a painting, about six feet long, which showed a man by a dark river, reaching out one hand pleadingly to the shadowy figure of another man, who had turned away. Insubstantial ghosts ringed him, and his friends had covered their heads in grief. After what had just happened in the corridor the image struck against Ani’s heart like a hammer and for a moment he could do nothing but gaze.
“It’s the right girl,” said a voice, and Ani looked away from the painting. There were three men in the room: a small man in a crimson cloak, who had spoken; a large, dark man, plainly dressed, who was leaning against the wall by the door they’d just used; and a slim pale man in a purple-striped white tunic, who sat upon an ivory couch.
“That’s Areios,” Melanthe said, drawing close to her father and glaring at the man in crimson.
“It seems the recognition is mutual,” said the man in the purple-striped tunic with satisfaction. “And you, fellow—are you this girl’s father?”
“Yes,” Ani whispered. His mouth was dry. “Ani son of Petesuchos. Sir … Lord … forgive me, I don’t want to be insolent, but I’m a stranger to the city, and I don’t know much about powerful people. Are you the emperor?”
“Yes,” the other replied, very calmly. “I am.” He smiled very slightly. “In time, Egypt will learn to recognize me.”
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