Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  “I know she hasn’t.”

  “Well, her minister did.”

  “That is different. The Queen of Egypt doesn’t denounce. She kills, and explains or is silent. Denunciation is the cackle of a sail-trimmer, guessing himself into the queen’s good graces. No one will ever need to denounce you, Aristobolus. Your friends will find your mangled carcass on the city trash-heap, unless you can think of a less clownish plot than this that you have told me.”

  “Look to it, Lord Tros, that you tell no one!”

  “Look to your own tongue. Mine obeys me!”

  Tros returned to the litter, and was into it, behind the curtains, before the eunuch saw him. There was a crowd eagerly listening to the argument between him and Conops. A sailor in armor, with bow-legs and only one eye, was an obvious butt for anybody’s humor, from a safe distance. And court eunuchs were as much despised as hated. The local wits were doing their ribald utmost to incite Conops to use his weapon. But no two pairs of landsmen’s eyes were as good as the one that glinted beneath the rim of Conops’s helmet. He had seen Tros return to the litter. He saw another man, not so well dressed approach and whisper through the curtains, so he invented a brand-new set of reasons for delay. He accused the eunuch of having demanded money, and of having decamped because Tros refused to pay him. Tros had spoken through the curtains to no less than three different whisperers before Conops suddenly cut short the argument by ordering the Jews to fall in again and resume the march. He put himself at their head. The eunuch, unable to force his way through the crowd, had to follow the procession, fuming.

  Conops led toward the palace by short cuts. He avoided the densely thronged Street of Canopus and made for the guardhouse at the main gate by a route forbidden to the public. There were armed guards lurking, ready to pounce on intruders and either rob and beat them or turn them over to the police, but they recognized the royal litter, and besides, eleven well-armed men were too many to tackle. But the main gate was another story. There the mercenary, polyglot, magnificently accoutred guards were lined up to keep petitioners from invading the palace grounds, and to keep a way clear for the going and coming of palace traffic. Captain Leander in leopard-skin and crimson strolled to the litter and drew the curtain.

  “Mystery of mysteries!” he lisped. “So Tros is with us!” It had been “Lord Tros — Lord Captain Tros” six weeks ago, and “remember me, Lord captain when you need a favor!” He pretended to study a list of names on a parchment scroll. “You have a permit?”

  “I have access to the palace.”

  “Ah! But there have been changes recently. The old list has been cancelled, and I can’t find your name on the new one.”

  “Send in my name to the Queen.”

  “She is absent.”

  “I will wait for her.”

  “She has left no command to admit you.”

  “Why then was the litter sent to bring me hither?”

  Tros got out, and Conops came and buckled on his sword. Leander was as tall as Tros, and looked taller in his plumed helmet, but he looked frail in comparison. He stepped backward and two of his men stepped forward, before he could resume his careless ease of manner and vaguely contemptuous tone of voice.

  “I believe the Lord Chamberlain has received reports of you that make your presence at the palace not so welcome as formerly.”

  “So!”

  Another officer approached and whispered. Leander nodded. “There is a law against armed slaves, Captain Tros. Have you anything in writing, to explain why you ignore the law? These Jews were given to you by Esias. They are armed, unless my eyes deceive me. I was drunk last night at the palace banquet, but those look to me like swords and armor.”

  He made a gesture. A platoon of twenty men stepped forward and grounded the butts of their spears with an ominous thud. The crowd of onlookers became excited; all Alexandrine crowds became excited at the least excuse, but to see Lord Captain Tros descending from a royal litter to be put under arrest by the Queen’s guards was sheer drama. They began to shout:

  “Pirate! Samothracian! Traitor! Judophile!”

  That last word was a danger signal. Almost the easiest way to start a riot was to insinuate that Jews were in some way involved. One-third of the population, Jews were two-thirds of the political problem, popular and unpopular in about equal proportion, always enjoying special privileges, always being persecuted. That the crowd accused Tros of befriending Jews suggested that Esias might be in trouble. The crowd took its cue from the court. Perhaps the Queen really had imprisoned Esias. Tros began to wish he had left his Jews on board the ship, not from fear of the crowd, nor of the Queen’s guards, but because he needed to be less conspicuous in order to learn what he wanted to know. A man in the midst of a racial riot isn’t likely to learn much more than a possible way of escape.

  He commanded his Jews to produce their evidence that they were freedmen. Leander examined the documents, flicking his teeth with his thumb-nail, at an obvious loss what to do or to say next.

  “You may tell your Queen,” said Tros, “that I won’t submit myself to further insult from her lackeys.”

  Without saluting he turned his back and marched away in the midst of his escort, grim faced, leaving the stuttering eunuch to take the litter where he pleased and to invent what lies he pleased. The crowd made way for him, gaping, doubting whether to enjoy his embarrassment or to marvel at his heroic bearing. He looked not at all like a man in disfavor, disgrace or distress. There was scorn in his eyes, and on his shoulders an air of relief. He looked free of the earth, as if he foresaw great events and a wide horizon. His ten Jews looked crestfallen, for it was a poor start for their first day’s freedom; and Conops, with his helmet a bit to one side, resembled nothing on earth but a Levantine sailor alert for trouble, glancing backward, suspicious, in fear of pursuit. But Tros, too splendidly contemptuous to shrug his shoulders, strode like a conqueror.

  They had marched all the way along the water-front and reached the Heptastadium, where a wide street crossed the city at right angles to the Street of Canopus, before Tros halted. For a minute or two he stood with his back to the city and stared at the gigantic marble lighthouse on Pharos Island, and at the gay-hued crowd that swarmed along the connecting causeway — that causeway from which he had seen Caesar plunge and swim for his life.

  “One has followed us, master,” said Conops.

  “Man or woman?”

  “Man-slave. I think he belongs to Olympus.”

  “Let him draw near.”

  “Master, he appears to have no weapon, but be careful! Such as he would pretend to deliver a note and produce a cubit’s length of poisoned Damascus dagger!”

  “Little man, if my name were on the death-list, we should be in a dungeon now, awaiting the executioner’s convenience Since we set foot ashore, four different men have tried to fathom me. We are no use dead. The Queen needs living legs for her endangered throne.”

  “Sail away, master! We could haul out in the Piraeus.”

  “Aye, within range of Brutus’s agents!”

  “Very well then, in Tyre.”

  “Within Cassius’s grip!”

  “Then through the Gates of Hercules and—”

  “Aye, and re-fit on the broad Atlantic!”

  “Master, we could get plenty of men from the Balaerics.”

  “Does he draw near?”

  “Aye. He looks treacherous. He seems to be waiting his chance to approach unnoticed.”

  “Demand his business.”

  Tros didn’t even turn his head. He was still staring at the Pharos — he and his escort forming a little island in the midst of the stream of people swarming toward the city — when Conops returned.

  “Master, he bade me say this: The Queen is on Lake Mareotis.”

  Tros nodded. For a minute or two he was silent. Then he turned and they stared at each other.

  “Little man, were it not for my good Northmen, who must be found and rescued, I would set s
ail, leaks and all, and seek some other port in which to re-fit.”

  “Master, let those toss-pot ax-men rot — aye, and the wenching Basques, too!”

  “Did I leave you to rot when Caesar’s men put out your eye and made you half a sailor?”

  “But—”

  “Do you know Esias’s warehouse on the shore of Mareotis?”

  “Aye, master. It was there that our Basques made trouble for us by breaking into the compound were Esias keeps the virgins for the household market.”

  “You were with them, I remember.”

  “Aye, preventing—”

  “To the tune of a virgin for whom I reimbursed Esias for the loss of value.”

  “She seduced me, master! She was a carroty-haired Circassian, with a pair of eyes on her like green jewels. She could see me in the dark. She—”

  “Aye, aye, she seduced you. To Esias’s warehouse — forward!”

  “Escort — atten-shun! Right dress — hold your chin up, Jeshua! By the centre, quick march! Right turn! Left wheel! Left! Left! Pick your heels up, Jeshua! Eyes to the front and try and look like fighting men, not bathhouse beauties! Left! left! You’re freedmen, remember. Don’t be afraid to smash some bunions — tread on ’em — bring your feet down with a whallop — let ’em feel your sword-hilt if they won’t make way — that’s better — left! Left! — and now remember who’s your captain, and when we get to Esias’s sheds, no pitch-and-toss-play with the guards for a chance at the girls. Left! Left! Straighten your helmet, Simeon! Left! Left!”

  CHAPTER XII. “I prefer the Queen’s trap to that other”

  When a number of men, for a number of different reasons, counsel me to turn aside from danger, I have usually found it wise to recognize the danger but to do the opposite of what they urge. Although they likely know it not, their counsel is directed either by their own necessity or by their love of comfort, good repute and profit.

  — From the Log of Lord Captain Tros of Samothrace

  Again, no sign of old Esias. His block of buildings was almost a city itself, marble-walled and colonnaded where it faced a great gap in the city wall, but built of brick in the rear and divided into a maze of crowded compounds. Alexandria lay between Lake Mareotis and the sea, and the lake-front was a long line of parks and promenade. There were a boat harbor, dozens of wine-booths, some expensive restaurants, and great gaps in the wall, planted with ornamental trees. The wall was useless for defensive purposes. The cross-city canal emerged beneath a marble bridge not far from Esias’s warehouse; westward of that the lake shore was reedy and unconfined by a bulkhead, but to the eastward was the Royal Wharf, and beyond that the entire lake front was of well-built masonry.

  The size of the lake was unguessable, there were so many islands, fringed with papyrus, many of them white with the marbled roofs of villas. There was always a haze that blended lake and sky, and through that threaded countless boats, some from the Nile through the thronged canal, laden with the produce of the richest land on earth. There were miles of staked nets and hundreds of fishing boats. And amid them all, blazing with paint, were the awninged yachts of the wealthier Alexandrines.

  Leaving his escort in the colonnade, Tros entered the warehouse office — a huge, dim mysterious chamber beamed with rough-hewn olive, stacked with merchandise and shelves of scrolls, and reeking of spice. Nathan, the third in seniority of Esias’s partners, loomed forth from the dimness, solemn as a vulture but almost painfully eager to seem courteous. Six slaves bowed behind him.

  “Greeting! Greeting!”

  “Where is my friend Esias?” Tros asked.

  Instead of answering, Nathan led into an inner office, a mere cabin of a place, with a window that gave a view of a compound where some slaves were being taught to read and write Greek, to increase their market value.

  “Lord Captain, Esias does not dare to be seen speaking to you. Neither do I dare to say why — not even to you, within four walls. Esias is with witnesses who will prove he has not spoken to you.

  “And he sends me no message?”

  “Yes. He says ‘Look to your life!’ And I add my warning to his. Lord Tros, we have been forbidden to repair your trireme.”

  “By whom?”

  “The less mention of names the better — but by the same minister who has proclaimed you a pirate.”

  “Publicly?”

  “Yes, officially, no. At a banquet at the palace, where he made a speech to some Roman notables, who have come overland from Cassius’s headquarters, seeking money and men I believe, he referred to you by name as a seditious alien, whom Pompeius Magnus would have known how to drive from the sea.”

  “And the Queen?”

  “Said nothing.”

  “Aye. She is good at saying nothing. Did she say it in many words?”

  “I know not. My informant told me that throughout all the speech-making she reclined on her divan and played with a Persian kitten, as if the world might go to wrack and ruin for all she cared. And now she is on Pleasure Island, with her child and her women. They say that Cassius’s envoys have returned to Syria empty-handed, except for some trashy presents. And her barge lies waiting at the royal boat wharf—”

  “And — ?”

  “One of the royal barge slaves was in here asking for you.”

  “When?”

  “He left not ten minutes ago. He pretended to be needing a new brass thole-pin. But he found fault with what we offered. And he asked what thole-pins you used. Thus, one word leading to another, he conversed about your trireme, and then wondered where you are. He said that the commander of the royal barge would esteem your advice on certain matters, and that it would be well for us to let the barge-commander know if you should show up.”

  “That is not all, Nathan. There is something else on your mind. What is it?”

  “Lord Tros, as you know, I am no alarmist. But there have been others asking for you, two freedmen, clients of a man named Aristobolus. They also wanted news of you if you should turn up.”

  “Any reason?”

  “Yes. They lied. They declared they were clients of Hippias the Rhodian, who is very wealthy and is said to stand high in the Queen’s favor. But I knew them. The rogues forgot that it was I who sold them, thirteen years ago, when Rabirius the Roman money-lender ruined their former master. They said Hippias wishes to do you a favor, but without attracting public notice. They said Hippias’s boat awaits you in the reeds, down near the public bath-house, half a furlong westward. They said, if you will take Hippias’s boat, it will convey you to him and he will accompany you into the Queen’s presence, where he will have much to say in your behalf.”

  “And — ?”

  “I happen to know that Hippias is at Dendera, visiting the estate from which he draws his income!”

  “And — ?”

  “They bade me warn you to come alone.”

  Tros laughed. “Nathan, I prefer the Queen’s trap to that other! Sell me a change of clothing. I am filthy from the dust of these streets.”

  “Lord Tros, why risk your life in either trap? It is safer in Rome than in Alexandria! Leave your trireme in Esias’s keeping. There is another corn fleet making ready. We can smuggle you and a few of your men to Puteoli. You have a big credit with us. We can give you drafts on our office in Rome, and I will give you a list of the names of senators who can be bribed to do anything, to forget everything, and to appoint the most improbable men to the most important positions. They will vote you Roman citizenship. They will make you a Roman admiral. Then remember your friends!”

  “Bring me new clothing, Nathan. I will visit the source of all this mystery. Trick me up like an Alexandrine exquisite.”

  “But, Lord Tros—”

  “And while you get the clothing, send in my man Conops.”

  Nathan Bloomed out to do Tros’s bidding and presently Conops clanked into the office. He was never quite certain how to treat these powerful but sometimes timid and almost always deferential Jews, whom
Tros so confidently trusted. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, his manner midway between impudence and respect for prodigious wealth, but another mood shone in his eye when he saw through the window the slave-girls learning Greek, and about a dozen others, in the corner of the compound, learning to sing Greek songs and to dance suggestive illustrations of the theme.

  “Drinking already, eh? Never mind those women. Stand with your back to the window. Now then: do you know of a place, half a furlong to westward, near the public bath-house, where a boat might make an unseen landing in the reeds?”

  “Aye, master. Where the south wind drives the floating islands in-shore. It is the place where the runaway slaves hide until nightfall and as often as not get snapped up by crocodiles.”

  “March your men thither and back, and report to me whether a boat lies hidden. If anyone questions you, say where I am. You may say I am here in conference, You may say I am going alone to the royal barge presently. You may say you expect to be drunk tonight, and if they give you some largesse for your wine and women, you may buy one small jar of wine, eleven fish-lines and hooks, and enough bait for a few hours’ fishing. Then, after you have reported to me, watch; and if you see them leave the boat, you may send eight of your men to seize it, taking the wine and fish-lines with them. You and the two remaining men will guard me as far as the royal boat wharf. When I am safe on the royal barge, you may make haste to the other boat — pull off your armor, all of you — row out into the lake, follow the royal barge as closely as you dare, drop anchor as near as you dare to the royal island, and remain there fishing until you see me return on the royal barge, or until I signal for you. Better take along some food as well as wine; it may be dark before I need you. And remember: don’t be conspicuous. Try to look like fishermen, or at least like a party of Alexandrine tradesmen keeping holiday. Have you understood me?”

  “Aye, aye, master.”

  “Then do it.”

  There was a good deal of fuss about clothing. Nothing but the best would do for Tros, and by the time Nathan’s slaves had bathed him and arrayed him in linen good enough for the Queen herself, and the expert slave-girls had arranged a chaplet in his hair, Tros looked hardly like the same man. He looked, if anything, more powerful because the almost transparent linen betrayed the bulge of his muscles; but he looked like a courtier, not a fighting man; he looked too elegant to care for anything but luxuries, wine, women and song. Conops, breathless from his errand, stood and gawked at him.