by Talbot Mundy
Conops burst in, slamming the door behind him. “Master—”
“Have you no manners, you graceless drunkard?”
Conops, fuming with impatience, stood at attention and touched his forehead, to Tros first and then to Esias.
“Master—”
“Set that back in the chest.”
Conops took the gold box from the table, wrapped it in a cloth, packed it away in the chest, locked it up, tested the lock, and handed the key to Tros.
“And now! What?”
“Master, there’s a sixteen-oared boat alongside, full of men and—”
“My boat,” said Esias. “I ordered it sent to save you trouble, Lord Tros.”
Conops groped in his blouse and laid on the table a small package tied up in linen rag. He had three raw knuckles, which he tried to conceal.
“The merchant Esias’s boat, it may be,” he remarked. “But Tarquinius the Etruscan has a fish, too, on that skillet. Tarquinius threw that to a rower.”
Tros untied the package. It contained a folded letter, unsealed.
“Does Tarquinius know you have this?”
“Nay, not he! I made believe that minute to need to inspect the new flax hawser that’s coiled up forward. I set a crew to laying it out on deck on the port side. What with me being hasty, and our lads knowing something was up and acting clumsy, and him in the way, he was discommoded more than anyone of his rank should be. So I had to ask him, nice and civil, to keep to starboard of the midship deckhouse, and I set a deck decurion to mind he did it. Then I went after that. But the Etruscan had thrown a coin, too, along with the packet so the boatmen got nasty — all four bow-oars. But I knew which one had it.”
“And the coin?”
Conops was silent.
“Show it to me!”
Conops opened his hand.
“Oh-ho! Silver?”
Tros read the letter. He passed it to Esias and Esias read it. Their eyes met. They nodded. Esias laid on the table ten strips of parchment and an Egyptian government tax receipt.
“And now, Lord Tros, before I leave you, and my God preserve you for a safe return, let me make you a gift. I have ten slaves—”
“Nay, nay, no slaves, Esias. There isn’t a slave on the ship. Oar-work breaks slaves’ hearts, and a slave in a battle at sea is only one more enemy to keep an eye on.”
“Lord Tros, these are ten young Jews who fought their way out of Jerusalem when Pompey laid siege to the city. They were hardly more than boys then. They burst their way by night through the Roman lines. They lived in the mountains until they were surrounded by Roman troops and starved out. They were sold in the Athens slave-mart, thence to Delos, where they were trained as gladiators and sold to Ephesus, whence they escaped. They reached Tarsus and went to sea as oarsmen on a pirate vessel. The pirate broke faith with them and sold them to my agent in Rhodes, who sent them in fetters to Alexandria. I have told them that your custom is to set free any slave who proves himself fit for freedom. So I offer them to you, from a friend to a friend, as the best gift I can make to you, and the greatest kindness I can do for them. These are deeds to them. This is the receipt for the tax on the transfer of ownership.”
“You honor me, Esias.”
“You accept them?”
“Aye, on your word, for I need them. Conops, fetch them up on deck and turn them over to the storekeeper to be clothed; then to the armorer—”
Esias interrupted: “Lord Tros, it is, as you know, against the law to arm slaves. Nevertheless, I have armed these. They are splendid archers. They have bows, swords, bucklers and the body-armor of Thracian hoplites taken from the battlefield of Pharsalia and sold at the auction in Rome after Caesar’s triumph. But the helmets are of the new style, of your own design, made in my workshops. They are also already clothed in your honor’s livery. And each one brings with him a basket of two hundred arrows, plumed with goose-quill and tipped with bronze. My countrymen can fight, and these are young men of good breeding. Perhaps they will no longer be slaves when they return to Alexandria.”
“They shall have their chance,” said Tros. “I love a man who loves freedom well enough to earn it.”
Tros and Esias embraced each other, whispering, first in one ear, then the other the ritual phrases of a secret brotherhood’ as ancient as the monuments of Thebes, far older than Eleusis. Then Esias took Tros’s arm to the deck and ten sturdy young Jews in Thracian body-armor but with strange, uncrested helmets, went down on their knees to kiss Esias’s hand.
“Your new master,” said Esias, and Tros bade them stand up. They looked him straight in the eyes, measuring him as he measured them. He examined them each in turn from head to foot. They appeared to like it. They were in no wise ashamed of themselves. They had cleaned their armor until it shone. They had the impudent health in their eyes of men who have nothing to lose but manhood.
“A good gift, Esias: They shall not lack their chance to show merit.”
Then, as a deck decurion helped Esias down the ladder into his sixteen-oared, awninged boat, there began the orderly, heart-thrilling marvel of a great ship getting under weigh. There was no wind. For the sheer love of splendor Tros ordered the purple sails unbrailed and sheeted down. A cymbal clanged the “stand by, all!” To the sharp shouts of the oar-bank captains three banks on either side shot forth vermilion oar-blades, all together, to half-length, with a thump of the ash looms on the oak ports. The forward captains clanked to a deep-sea chantey — the immortal, hilarious one about Zeus and the sea-god’s daughter. There was a cry from Conops in the bow. And then, from Tros on the poop beside the long-limbed Argive helmsman:
“Out oars! Ready! Dip!”
He set the time for the drums with his right hand. They thundered. The oar-blades flashed in the noonday sun. The ship leaped. The blue sea boiled alongside. The gold-leaf covered tongue of the wide-mouthed serpent at the ship’s bow darted and flashed on its hidden gimbals as if the serpent were alive.
“An omen, Lord Tros, a great good omen!” said the helmsman, pointing to the glistening summit of the Pharos lighthouse. Sea-birds soared around it, evenly spaced, in an almost perfect circle.
Tros waved to Esias. Then he answered the helmsman:
“Four hundred and three score men — the best ship on all earth’s oceans — a dangerous voyage beginning — bad weather a-brew in that haze to the South — that’s desert dust. Eyes on the course, you Argive dreamer! She’ll be blowing a three-reef gale by midnight.”
Then, to his chief-lieutenant, a Phoenician, fifty years old:
“You may change the sails, Ahiram. Get these stowed and bend on the new flax set. Order the lower-deck captains to check the oar-port covers and have them ready.”
The Phoenician glanced southward, met Tros’s eyes and nodded. There was a storm on the way from the Libyan desert.
CHAPTER III. “Betray me”
Treachery can ruin only traitors. No spy can perceive the purpose of him whose heart is free from treason to himself. Guile is a form of wisdom that an honourable man may have and honourably use, persuading traitors to employ their ill will ignorantly in the service of him whom they aim to destroy.
— From the Log of Lord Captain Tros of Samothrace
Tros’s cabin reeled. The lamp swung. The shadows swayed. Lars Tarquinius was seasick, but too mean-spirited and obstinate to vomit. He asked Tros’s permission to remove his corselet, a very handsome specimen of armor that made him look a great deal more Romanly heroic than he felt. He eyed the spare bunk yearningly; it looked warm and luxurious; but Tros, perhaps purposely, had heaped it with odds and ends of furniture that were roped to keep them from being pitched to the floor.
But Tarquinius was a prisoner. He’ knew it, although nothing had been said about it and he still wore his double-edge Egyptian dagger in a Roman sheath.
There was no longer a rhythmic oar-pulse. The weary, well-fed rowers were asleep in the dark on shelves, like corpses in a catacomb. The ship wallowe
d and creaked as the Libyan Khamasin, sand-laden, bullied a following sea into steep waves. It was as much as Tarquinius could manage to keep himself off the floor. He had to grip the chair-arms. It was humiliating to him that Tros should be able to keep his feet and even to pace the floor, to and fro, with his arms behind him.
“Take it off, yes,” Tros answered. “Why did you put it on? Why the dagger?” His own double-edged sword, in the second-best sheath, lay on the starboard bunk, fore and aft, with the hilt on the pillow. His helmet and armor swayed from the hooks on the bulkhead.
“Those are fierce men in the deckhouse, where your insolent man Conops told me I may sleep,” Tarquinius answered. He let his corslet fall to the floor with a thump. For a moment he sprawled with his elbows on the table and his eyes shut. Then he’ sat back and huddled himself in his scarlet equestrian toga. “I don’t care to be murdered,” he remarked.
“Do you know an honest sailor when you see one?” Tros retorted. “Those are my petty officers. They would no more think of harming you than I would—”
Tarquinius looked relieved; even his aquiline blue-red nose looked a bit less cynical, until Tros added:
“ — without cause!”
Tarquinius found a flare of temper somewhere beneath his miserable surface. “Cause, eh? You invited me into your cabin. What for? By Bacchus, you haven’t offered me a drink, nor anything but insult. I am sick.”
“So I see. You will be more sick before we make the let of Cyprus. Talk while you can.”
“About what? Bona dea! Can I see into your thoughts? I am here on the authority of the Queen’s secretary.”
Tros stood still in front of him, holding a chair-back, leaning across the table with the lamplight aglow on his eyes. “Why did you write to the merchant Esias, in a letter which you threw, along with a piece of silver, to the bow-oarsman of Esias’s boat, saying he would have you to thank if his corn should ever reach its destination?”
“You have a powerful imagination, Captain Tros. The answer is simple. I didn’t.”
“The proof,” said Tros, “also is simple. Here is the letter. Look at it. You see it? The last paragraph reads: ‘remember me, Jew-Esias. One of these days I shall ask for my honorarium.’ What does that mean?”
Tarquinius felt too sick to invent any lies. He was like a witness under torture. The truth seemed relatively unimportant, except as the easiest means of hurting the inquisitor’s feelings. He wanted to go away and lie down.
“I intended Esias to know that the secret is out,” he answered. He sneered like a wolf. “His and yours also! Have you heard that the Cyprus fleet has declared for Cassius? That was Esias’s doing! You are the Jew’s catspaw. One of my informers’ is a slave in Esias’s office, who overheard Esias telling his partners that he would offer you a fifth to see that the corn reaches its destination. The corn is meant for Cassius, who is to invade Egypt and to install Arsinoe on the throne. Cleopatra—”
He made a gesture with his hand across his Adam’s apple. Then, at last, suddenly he met Tros’s eyes at full stare. His own, that were flinty and watery-gray with red rims, hardened in the lamplight, excited, as if he were staking his all on one throw of the dice.
“Tros, you are not the only wise man! I also know on which side of the platter the food is. I, too, am on the side of Arsinoe. There will be some pickings for smart fellows when that young woman gets her rights.”
“Her rights?” Tros went and leaned against the after bulkhead. “Do you mean her revenge?”
“Rights was the word I used.”
“Explain it.” Tros awaited a roll of the ship and then eased himself into the chair at the end of the table. He struck a gong. It was the only release of emotion that he permitted himself, and even that might be charged to the noise of the storm. He struck so suddenly and so loudly that Tarquinius turned as if to ward off a blow. But Tros had to strike three times before the steward heard through the storm and came in from his cubbyhole under the break of the poop.
“Wine!”
The steward returned very quickly with a skin of Egyptian wine, which he hung from a hook on the overhead beam. He poured two silver bowls about a third full, then returned to his quarters. There was no need to spill a-libation; the ship’s motion attended to that. Tros sipped. Tarquinius drank and began to feel less wretched as the strong stuff stirred his blood.
“Explain,” Tros repeated. “You said Arsinoe’s rights.”
“I said it. Do you realize that when Caesar came, the Alexandrines had deposed Cleopatra and driven her out of Egypt? She was legally deposed. No longer Queen. They didn’t choose to have a seventeen-year-old girl reforming their government and cutting off the wrong heads. They wanted someone they could manage. So they made Cleopatra’s younger brother and sister joint rulers, under a regency that knew its business. Regents’ business is to get rich, isn’t it? But then Caesar came, who knew more about grabbing other folks’ money and spending it than all the robbers since Alexander. Cleopatra showed she has genius, even though she is a Ale-Ptolemy and they’re a rotten lot, the Ptolemies. Instead of invading Egypt with a Syrian army, she had herself smuggled back to Alexandria. Some say she came on your ship. Did she? Anyway, she was taken in to Caesar’s presence in a roll of rugs, and she became his mistress. But Arsinoe was still the lawful Queen of Egypt. The young king was killed in battle later on and Queen Arsinoe became Caesar’s prisoner. But she was never deposed by the Alexandrines. She was still Queen of Egypt. If not, why did Caesar walk her through Rome at his chariot-tail in his three-day triumph? Why he didn’t have her beheaded afterwards, as is usual, I don’t know. He had Vercingetorix the Gaul beheaded after that triumph, you remember. It was an actual fact, and still is, that Arsinoe was the court’s choice. She is the lawful and the only Queen of Egypt. She was recognized as such by the Roman Senate by being so described on the placards before and behind her when she was marched through the streets in humiliation. She has not been legally deposed by anyone who had authority to do it. Thousands of people saw her crowned Queen, with the double crown of Egypt, by the high priest, on the steps of the temple of Serapis. Cleopatra was never crowned in public. Queen of Egypt Arsinoe still is. And the gold of Egypt, Captain Tros, let me tell you, will fall plop-plop-plop into the laps of the men who have the good sense to perceive the girl’s manifest destiny and to help to bring it to pass.”
Tros humored him: “You think Egypt would accept Arsinoe?”
“Aye. Egypt will accept whatever men of discretion impose. Rome, too, will swiftly recognize her as the lawful Queen of Egypt, because she is one of those priest-ridden fools who are easy to manage. No matter who helps her back to the throne, Arsinoe will pick Octavian to win the civil war, because she has never seen him, so she can’t hate him as much as she hates Antony. That will mean a river of Egyptian money pouring into Octavian’s pocket. Plunder! Plunder! Can’t you see it? She may even try to marry Octavian, and the pimply pervert could do a lot worse for himself, let me tell you. Give me more wine, it seems to ease my belly.” — He raised the bowl in both hands.— “Captain Tros, I pledge you youth and beauty, the cult of Venus-Aphrodite, mystic merry-making, woman in her right place as man’s convenience! To Queen Arsinoe of Egypt — may the gods give her a Roman husband!”
Tros got up and re-filled Tarquinius’s bowl from the swinging wine-skin.
“How much of this,” he asked when he had sat down again, “do you think Queen Cleopatra suspects? You should know. They say you are in the Lady Charmion’s confidence, and she is supposed to know the Queen’s thoughts.”
Tarquinius smiled. It was meant to be the kind of smile that fluxes understanding between man and man. But the ship was plunging, tossing her stern to a blast from the Libyan desert. It was a sour smile. He had to wait a few moments before he could speak.
“As you know, Captain Tros, no one is in that woman’s confidence, nor in the Queen’s either. Such a poor devil as I am — I had a tidy fortune, but I lost it — ha
s to swallow condescensions, though they make the blood boil. Hecate! I knew the lady Charmion when she hadn’t a shift to her name, when she climbed in through a palace window to beg clean clothing from one of Arsinoe’s slaves. One would think now however, to hear her speak to me, that she had bought me at auction, cheap.”
Tros nodded. He could almost sympathize with anyone who had suffered Charmion’s temper. It was just as well, though, that his elbow was on the table and his right hand, supporting his chin, concealed his mouth. His smile might have silenced Tarquinius, who, unaware of the smile, continued to reveal himself, in a desperate, gambler’s effort to win Tros over. He had no hope of winning Tros’s friendship. Even with the strong wine in his brain he was too shrewd to pretend to try to do that. Very shrewdly indeed, he even took for granted Tros’s contempt, and showed his own contempt for Tros’s scruples.
“Such a man as I am, Captain Tros, has to use all available means to an end. And the end is, to take good care of me, Tarquinius. It is my business to learn what is going on.”
“Why not call yourself a spy and have done with it?”
“If it pleases you. Very well. Call me a spy, if that makes you feel virtuous. But I spy in my own interest. Do you understand that? There is only one person whose interests I serve. He is Lars Tarquinius, Etruscan, eques Romanus, to myself the most important person in the world. The world may rot, for all of me, unless it treats me handsomely. When I accepted a beggarly pittance from Charmion, it was in order to serve my ends, not hers. I know all about her having wanted you for a lover, and how she hates you for refusing. I didn’t know whether that meant you are a Samothracian ascetic, or whether you aim higher. Some of the court gossips insist that you are Cleopatra’s lover.” He paused, staring straight into Tros’s eyes. But he learned nothing. “Anyhow, I offered to spy on you, because I knew of no better way to reach Arsinoe. When your servant opened and examined my baggage” — he paused again, guessing at the probable depth of Tros’s credulity, but Tros betrayed no emotion, so he continued. It was a bow at a venture — a shrewd guess, but his eyes betrayed that he was guessing— “he removed a confidential letter. Where is it?”