Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  No sign of the one man in Alexandria on whom Tros felt he could rely. The temple gongs were clanging for some festival or other, but that was no reason why Esias should be conspicuously absent. Jews didn’t ‘recognize pagan festivals if they could help it, but there was not even one of Esias’s partners on the wharf to do the honors and to give the last breathless news of what had happened while Tros was at sea out of touch with events.

  It was impossible to keep the crew any longer aboard. From Cyprus by way of Tarsus to Alexandria, short of provisions and water, had been a severe strain on discipline. Tros had an unfashionable objection to cutting the throats of wounded men, so one of Esias’s sheds would have to be turned into a hospital; and the Osirian priests, who were pretty good doctors, would have to be sent for and suitably persuaded with gifts of young black bulls and money. The trireme’s doctor, assisted by the bards, had done his best, but he was overworked and short of bandages; and besides, he, too, had his eye on the women.

  The moment the oars were all stowed in the overhead racks the rowers swarmed on deck, each man with his little bag of personal possessions. The women began to swarm aboard, and there was no stopping them until Tros made it known that there would be no pay for the crew until the trireme had been hauled out and stripped ready for Esias’s shipwrights. Ahead, leading between city slums, there was a ramp made of balks of timber, with enormous capstans at the upper end. There were cranes, sheer-legs, workshops, everything for repairing, building or rebuilding four ships at a time, but all the gear would have to go ashore before repairs could commence. The women began to lose enthusiasm. The crew clamored to be put to work and get it done with.

  Tros went ashore. He strode into Esias’s gloomy office with the air of a man looking for trouble, as if more of it might help him to conquer what he had already. There were plenty of slaves at the long drafting tables, plenty of clerks to bow and be obsequious, but no Esias and not even a partner. There was an atmosphere of unspoken unwelcome, if not ill will, slaves taking their cue from displeased masters. However, a slave in a brown smock, walking backward, opened a door and admitted Tros into an inner office, shutting the door behind him with a peculiar, stealthy movement that suggested a trap.

  Hillel, the man whom Tros least liked of Esias’s five partners, sat staring across a table that was piled with scrolls. He was a middle-aged man with a keen face and a pronounced stoop from the shoulders, whose hands clutched invisible things with nervous indecision.

  “Lord. Captain Tros,” he said, without rising, “you were better off at sea! You have brought your ship into a harbor full of intrigues of which no man can foresee the outcome.”

  “Where is my friend Esias?”

  “He was summoned to the palace as soon as your ship was sighted. There is no word from him since. I think the Queen suspects him of intriguing with you. Lord Captain — if he is in the dungeon — being tortured — as his friend, are you not willing to spare his old bones by making haste to tell the Queen your secrets? He won’t tell them. He will never tell without your permission.”

  “You are inventing alarms,” Tros answered.

  “Am I? It is said that you sold the corn fleet to the Romans.”

  “I did. I have the money.”

  “Lord Tros, there is a plot that has been discovered. They are taking many important people to the dungeons. It is being said you have conspired with the Romans to overthrow Queen Cleopatra, and to put her sister Arsinoe of Cyprus on the throne in her stead! Have you her with you on the trireme?”

  Tros laughed, angrily. “Am I a madman? Arsinoe is in Cyprus. The money for Esias’s corn is in my cabin. Send your slaves to carry it here and get it counted. Give me a receipt and credit me with my fifth of it ail. Get the pay-roll from my clerk. Pay the crew half their wages, after they have hauled out. Has Esias sold my pearls?”

  “He sold them to the Queen.”

  “For a fair price?”

  “An incredible price. But let him tell you, if they haven’t flayed him to death! The Queen has the pearls. We have the money. But where is Esias?”

  “I will see the Queen and ask her.”

  “Lord Tros, you were better at sea! You were better at sea! The Queen may order your arrest. She is afraid. She is a Ptolemy. A fearful Ptolemy is a deadlier menace to her friends than a poisonous serpent! She suspects everyone.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of conspiring to kill her and put her sister Arsinoe on the throne. There is a rumor that Arsinoe is on her way to Egypt. It is said that the Roman proconsul Cassius is sending an army to her aid from Syria. It is being said that you plotted it, and that Esias knows. It is said it was you who persuaded the Egyptian war fleet to desert to Cassius, that there might be no fleet in Alexandria to resist invasion. And Esias—”

  “Is not a fool such as you are, Hillel. Neither is the Queen such a fool that she would risk the enmity of all the Jews in Alexandria by torturing Esias — nor such a fool as to believe Arsinoe could land in Egypt in advance of a Roman army and escape death. You are full of rumors and they belly-ache you, Hillel. I go to the palace. Order me a litter and summon the master-shipwrights. Have them grease the ways thoroughly before they haul out. Can you rid the wharf of those wenches?”

  “Lord Captain Tros, at least a third of them are spies expressly sent to learn from your men what you were doing in Cyprus, in Tarsus and elsewhere. I ordered the wharf-gate locked. They came over the roof. I ordered them driven away, and I received a warning, from no other than the personal slave of the chief of police, not to interfere with the rights of the whore-masters’ guild.”

  “Clear me a shed for a hospital.”

  “Lord Tros, send your wounded to a temple.”

  “Nay. Let them lie in comfort.”

  “As for the trireme, frankly, I would not dare to—”

  Tros interrupted. “This, Hillel, is a list of the repairs that I know need doing. Check that and write me an estimate. But as for what needs doing below water, we shall know when she is hauled out, so summon the shipwrights.”

  “Lord Tros—”

  “I believe you heard me, Hillel. Attend to it. Order a litter — a good one.”

  Hillel shrugged his shoulders and sent a slave for a hired litter. Tros overheard the command.

  “I will ride in a private litter,” he remarked, casually, as if he were ordering the next course of a meal, but his leonine eyes looked dangerous and Hillel noticed it.

  “Lord Captain Tros, you are out of favor. Who is there who would dare to lend his private litter? In such times as these, when no one knows who is to be accused next, who shall lend his litter and liveried bearers to a man denounced as a pirate?”

  “Who denounced me?”

  “One of the Queen’s ministers.”

  Tros threw back his shoulders. He astonished even Hillel, who knew better than to expect mild measures from the man whom Cleopatra had employed to do what not one of her own commanders could have been trusted, or would have dared to attempt.

  “Send your best-dressed slave to the palace to say that Lord Captain Tros awaits a litter to convey him to an audience with the Queen.”

  “Lord Captain, what if she sends a guard instead, to take you to the dungeon!”

  Tros snorted. “She is not a coward. She is not a reptile, nor a whore, nor a born fool. She and I have been friends too many years for her to put me to that indignity, on the strength of a mere rumor.”

  “Lord Tros, dozens of her friends are in the dungeons!”

  “Send for the royal litter!”

  He strode out of the office and watched Esias’s slaves remove the treasure from the cabin — watched the wounded being laid on the wharf in a dismal row — watched the grease being laid on the ramp — ordered all the gear and even the arrow-engines unshipped — foresaw and attended to a hundred details — until at last, to the confusion of Hillel, a litter did come from the palace, borne by eight men in Queen Cleopatra’s livery and preceded by a eu
nuch who was insolent and elegant enough to be the Queen’s own usher.

  There was no bodyguard provided. That was the only suggestion that Tros might be in disfavor. But he was in no mood to go unsuitably attended. He summoned his ten ex-gladiators. They looked splendid enough in their polished armor to be anyone’s escort; but Conops, with his one eye and his slit lip, in a kilt and a tasseled red cap, looked not so praiseworthy.

  “Tidy yourself, you filthy dock-rat! Where’s your armor? Stick that knife inside your shirt and gird a sword on. Try to look less like an ape that fell into a sewer. Shall I go through the streets of Alexandria ashamed of the commander of my escort? Spruce yourself!”

  “Aye, aye, master.”

  “And remember not to touch your forelock to the Queen’s guards! Be insolent.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  “Lord Tros,” said Hillel, “armed slaves? Armed slaves in the city? It is known that those Jews are slaves and that Esias gave them to you.”

  “I know the law,” Tros answered.

  “So do the police!” said Hillel. “Those arrogant dogs—”

  “Shall bite a bad bone! Be assured of it, Hillel!”

  Conops sent one of the Jews to bring his armor. He made another Jew spit-and-polish an imagined rust-spot. Even the armor could not make him look less bow-legged, nor give him height, but he looked at least businesslike in the gleaming crestless helmet, and there was no doubt at all of his grip on his ten men.

  “Fall in, you sons of Abraham! Five of you to each side of the litter! Now then, pick your heels up! March like gladiators! Clank like one man! — Ready, master! — Lord Captain’s escort, by the centre, forward, quick march! Left! Left! Left! You’re out of step, Josephus — do you think it’s a dance you’re doing for the dock-side wenches? Left! Left!”

  The dock gate opened wide and Tros went forth, to he knew not, and Conops cared not, what fate.

  CHAPTER XI. “Give these men their freedom”

  A menace and a threat are not the same thing. Perception of the difference between them is the key to successful strategy. A menace is genuine danger, sometimes almost imperceptible, with which it is impossible to compromise. It must be recognized, understood, faced, overcome.

  Threats are of three kinds: fair warning; calculated to prevent another’s indiscretion; efforts to unmask another’s intention; signs of fear pretending to be bold.

  But threats may be the cunning mask of menace. They should be studied.

  — From the Log of Lord Captain Tros of Samothrace

  The eunuch got lost in the crowd. He was so full of his own importance that he walked straight ahead with his nose in the air, and when a polyglot swarm of loafers rushed from watching some street-corner acrobats to the more exciting spectacle of a tavern fight between Greeks and Gabinian ex-soldiers, some of them still in the rags of Roman uniform, the eunuch remained ignorant for several minutes that he was no longer being followed by his cortege.

  Tros commanded. Conops rose to the occasion. The litter-bearers protested, but the ten Jews prodded them as if they were asses. In a moment the litter was going at a dog-trot up a side street, taking a devious but comparatively unobstructed course toward the splendid municipal building — not, however, toward the front entrance, whose marble steps were packed with people waiting to see a religious procession. Being a festival day, the courts and the principal municipal offices were closed. The whole long marble-fronted, colonnaded Street of Canopus running east and west the full length of the city was a mass of spectators in holiday mood, through which the chariots of exquisites were being driven headlong by charioteers who enjoyed being cursed and whose owners could afford to be fined if the police could get near enough to take their names.

  It was a dinning, ululating, pulsing city, full of street lights and laughter and flowers, with the wealth all in view and the poverty kept where it belonged, out of sight in the meaner byways. Nothing — absolutely nothing was allowed to interfere with Alexandrine gaiety. Even business — and it cost money to be gay and splendid — ceased while the Alexandrines played. But from sunrise to sunset, three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, one could pay taxes; so there was one office, entered from the rear of the municipal building, whose doors never closed during daylight hours.

  Two or three hundred yards away from the door of that office Conops collected the Jews’ swords and piled them beside Tros in the litter. He even piled their helmets in the litter to complete their air of innocence. In armor, without helmets or weapons, they looked ridiculous and they were jeered by the crowd. But they reached the office door without having to use their fists on anyone except the litter-bearers, who felt like lost sheep without their eunuch and suspected, too, that they were being put to unlawful purpose and would be whipped when the eunuch found them.

  Tros led the ten Jews into the office and lined them up in front of a long counter, at which sat seven of the most efficient bureaucrats on earth — three to watch the three who did the business, and one to make sure that the watchers themselves did no thieving. There was no astonishment, no comment, no expression of special interest. It was quite usual for Alexandrines to select festival days for rewarding faithful slaves. Tros was abrupt and businesslike:

  “Give these ten men their freedom. Here are the certificates of ownership. Here are the receipts for the tax on previous transfer, showing the value at which they were then assessed.”

  “Ten percent again,” said an official. “This is taxed as a transfer of ownership to the slave himself.”

  Tros paid it. The officials signed and countersigned ten certificates on parchment. There was a charge for the parchment. The chief official sealed the ten certificates. There was a charge for the seal. A corresponding entry was made on the archive-scroll. There was a charge for the entry. Then each Jew received his utterly unexpected certificate of freedom. Tros cut short their jubilation:

  “Fall in! Stand at attention! Have I freed a lot of sentimentalists? If I buy garlic, do I kiss the seller? You have paid for your freedom — earned it, like men, in battle. Form two deep! Right! Forward, by the right, quick march!”

  Outside, Conops returned their weapons. He observed their faces. He detected symptoms:

  “Sulphury Cocytus! Up-snoots, is it, proud and lofty? Which of you wants to fight me for who buys wine? Which two of you? No takers? Swallow this, then: what a slave does well, a freedman does exactly twice as well, or he hears from me about it with the butt-end of a crank-bar! Stand dignified — this isn’t Yom Kippur, or the Feast of Esther! By the right — dress! Cock your helmet straight, you! And for the love of your mother Jezebel, try to march as if you never wore leg-irons!”

  He was talking for time and to distract attention. There was something going on that Tros might not wish to be noticed by his escort. A slave had slipped a note into Tros’s hand just as he was getting into the litter. A very well-dressed Alexandrine, in a two-horsed chariot at a street-corner not far away, was watching, expecting a signal from Tros or an answer by the slave, and Tros appeared to be considering what to do or to say. Then at last the Queen’s eunuch came, sweating and very indignant; he had evidently been mocked and not too gently handled by the crowd as he traced the litter through the swarming streets. He tried to reach Tros, to give him a piece of his mind, but Conops interfered, blocking his way:

  “Hold hard, capon! You’ll be spitted soon enough without crowding your betters! What’s the excuse you have to offer? What d’ye mean by sneaking off and leaving the Lord Captain in the streets without a peacock to show his importance? Betting on tomorrow’s races, were you?”

  The eunuch was half-hysterical with anger. He minced thin-lipped profanity:

  “Sailor!” Alexandria knew no worse epithet. “This is a royal litter! The Queen’s!”

  “Can the Queen go where she pleases?”

  “Certainly!”

  “Well, here’s her litter, where its rider pleases!”

  “Drunkard! I have orders t
o convey your master to the palace!”

  “Then why didn’t you? I’ve half a mind to hand you over to the Civil Guard for—”

  Tros had made his signal, and the very well-dressed man had left his chariot; he was talking fast and Tros was listening, in a deeply recessed doorway. Conops kept the eunuch too indignant to observe what was happening; he imagined Tros was behind the litter-curtains, but he couldn’t get past Conops to discover his mistake, and when he screamed to the bearers to march they were prevented by the Jews.

  Tros, done listening in the doorway, thumped his fist into his left hand:

  “No, I tell you! Do you know what No means? I will have no part in treason. You take advantage of my hatred of bearing tales to come and tell me of a plot that would cost the lives of dozens of you, were I even to whisper your name!”

  “As for that, Lord Tros, your life is as easy to take as other men’s. Betray me, and sign you own death warrant!”

  “Keep your threats for cowards, Aristobolus! I will give you a piece of information — not for your own sake, for I think you a loose-tongued lecher who would sell his best friend, but for the sake of better men, who might be swept into the same net with you: the Princess Arsinoe is not in Egypt. I left her in Cyprus—”

  “But I say she is in Egypt!”

  “You call me a liar? Are you armed?”

  “No.”

  “Then govern your speech. I say, I left Arsinoe in Cyprus, well watched, guarded by Roman soldiers and a company of pirates — two score men whom I made prisoner and turned over to her for a bodyguard.”

  “Couldn’t she come with her pirates to Egypt?”

  “About as easily as Daedalus flew from Crete to Sicily. Give her wings and a fair wind, scare away the eagles, and she might get halfway. Then she’d have a long swim, Aristobolus.”

  “So you are on the Queen’s side.”

  “I am not on your side.”

  “Did you know the Queen has denounced you as a pirate?”