by Talbot Mundy
He looked hard at her, and his eyes were as steady as hers. He lied, and he intended her to understand that.
“To keep my Northmen out of mischief. They are angry, that you sent them to a prison-camp, mercy because they broke the heads of men who spoke loosely of you.”
“And you can’t control your Northmen? I could. Who are the women who availed themselves of your men’s escort? The women who are now in Pelusium? I have heard there are three.”
“Merchants’ wives,” he answered.
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
“Whose wife is the one named Hero?”
“Egypt, there are questions that are best unasked.” He stood up. “I have saved your throne. I have done your errand. Now keep your promise.”
“I am grateful, even though you do so curiously harbor — an unknown woman,” she answered. Suddenly her voice changed. “I sent you to kill! Instead, you say you sent Arsinoe back to Cyprus! You have taken your Northmen without my leave. And in Pelusium you have a woman! A woman named Hero! Oh, my spies are awake, though my generals sleep!”
“Egypt, I hold your promise. No, no! It was Cleopatra’s promise. I have done my duty by you. It is time now for me to repair my trireme, and to set sail on the voyage of which we have so often spoken.”
“With this woman named Hero?”
Suddenly he noticed she was smiling. She was gazing westward toward Rhakotis. Tros turned and followed her gaze. Where the basket-flares had glowed on the throat of night there was now a billowing holocaust — a black cloud, red-lit from beneath by a burning hull, high on the ways at Esias’s wharf. It was too far away for the roar of the flames to be heard, but a mast fell and the sparks volcanoed skyward as Tros watched. He could see the phantom figures of his seamen, or perhaps they were Esias’s slave-gangs, beating out sparks on the warehouse roofs.
“What burns?” asked Cleopatra.
Tros met her eyes in silence. She didn’t flinch. She smiled with mortifying sympathy.
“Your trireme?”
He didn’t trust himself to speak.
Her voice was loaded with triumphant malice: “Oh, I pity you! What agony to lose that grand ship!”
Then he did speak: “Egypt, I was your friend.”
“Don’t you think Cassius’s agents did it? Or do you think someone may have wanted to keep you from sailing away with the woman, whose name, you say, is Hero — merchant’s wife? — from Memphis? — Oh yes, you may go and watch your ship burn. Come and tell me about it tomorrow. I will take care, meanwhile, that nothing happens to you. My secret agents shall protect you — from Cassius’s spies. Yes, you may go now. Don’t be disturbed if you find you are watched.”
CHAPTER XXIII. “Angry? Aye, Egypt, I am”
How hard it is to draw the line between a necessary act of justice, and mere malice; between savagery, and proper punishment intended solely to prevent recurrence of something wrong. No matter what the provocation, I have found it wiser, as Caesar sometimes did, to abstain from vengeance, but to beware of those upon whom I might have had it. Not always, but not seldom they find it harder to forgive the magnanimity, than it is to forgive their enmity. And that is natural enough: nature is not to be trusted to direct our motives, only to beglamour them with false names.
— From the Log of Lord Captain Tros of Samothrace
It was race day; there was no doubt where to find Cleopatra that afternoon. The races had more effect than law and police on the behaviour of the Alexandrine crowd. The priesthood of Serapis might have felt happier, but the crowd would have felt insulted if the Queen had stayed away. Unable to compete with such a popular attraction, the priests had contrived to give chariot racing a vaguely religious significance; they had a row of reserved seats into which they filed with solemn ceremony. Royalty could not afford to miss the opportunity to arrive rather late and be more brilliantly ostentatious than the priests. True, Cleopatra herself was a priestess; on certain occasions she even wore the robes of divine Isis. But it was better politics to appear at the races as royalty, with the priesthood in decidedly subordinate position. Even Caesar, who also was a high priest, had taken that course.
So Tros, too, attended the races, after his own determined fashion. Too indignant to feel tired, even though he had worked furiously all night long to save Esias’s docks and repair yards from destruction, he submitted to be washed and dressed in court apparel by Jew-Esias’s slaves. He could hardly even feel his wound, he was so angry. He took one last look at the smoking ruin of his trireme, gave curt orders to Ahriam, and had himself carried in a curtained litter borne by eight slaves, past the splendid temple of Serapis, to the royal entrance to the Stadium.
Like the Baltic wife who was slain by a Roman arrow on the northern coast of Gaul, his beloved trireme, the finest warship the world had ever known, was dead. Dead. Dead. Have ships souls? He wondered. The loss might signify another new beginning, stormier, more difficult than ever, nevertheless a beginning.
Money and men he still had. To build a new ship, Queen or no Queen, would be easier than to get another such crew together. He would get that crew to sea again, at all costs, soon; on some sort of ship, to keep them disciplined. He was already storming the future. He looked the part in his gorgeous purple cloak, with the broad gold band binding his raven hair, and his sword in its green-and-vermilion sheath, with the jewelled sword-belt, one buckle missing.
The royal entrance to the Stadium was as elaborate as architects could make it. Fifty helmeted guardsmen stood like statues on either side of the mosaic pavement between the parking place for litters and the marble entrance steps. Two junior guard-officers, wearing a year’s income in gilded armor and jewelled belts and hilts, saluted Tros but flinched from facing him. He looked too angry, too important. They turned him over to the Captain of the Guard, Leander, a tall, bored exquisite with intelligent gray eyes, who was at pains to appear humorously gracious. He accepted Tros’s sword with his own beautifully manicured hands, instead of letting a slave receive it on a cushion. He himself, with his own hands, laid it on a rack in the guardroom.
“Captain Tros, I hope you bear me no ill will for having had to refuse you admission to the palace recently?”
Tros eyed him, sure, if of nothing else, that what Leander craved was money; not promises or fair words, money. He knew how deeply the man was in debt, and how he loved his social position. So he snubbed him.
“I reserve my ill will for my equals!”
Leander winced. He was merely a parvenu aristocrat, his manners guided by the latest hint of royal favour and disfavour. Evidently word had filtered through the mysterious court channels of information that Tros was not yet in eclipse. Not yet. But Leander was an Alexandrine, and in favour with women at court. His retort was as prompt as an asp’s fangs:
“Equals? Has a pirate any equals? I suppose you do feel almost human since they burned your private navy! Have you learned who did it?”
“If you knew what I know, Leander, you would ask fewer questions.”
“Omniscience! Was it envious Zeus with his thunderbolts? Did the great god burn your trireme to prevent you from raping Olympus?”
“If I suspected you of having done it, Leander, you would be worth more.”
“How so?”
“Feet first on your way to the embalmer. He at any rate would have a profit of you. Is it your duty to keep the Queen’s guests gossiping at the foot of the stairs?”
“Way for the Lord Captain! Kindly tread upon my shadow and immortalize it!” Suddenly Leander changed from spiteful raillery to a more familiar, friendlier tone. “Forget your trireme, Tros, and bet on Yellow in the big race; then you’ll be feeling better tempered next time we meet. Bet early enough, and you may get odds of five to one, or even better. Red will be favorite, at odds on. Red’s owner has been financed by a Roman moneylender, and the Romans have betted their last sesterce. But I think they’ll lose their money. Let me do your betting for you.”
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sp; Was Leander worth buying? Tros decided he might be — possibly — perhaps. No Alexandrine courtier was very likely to be grateful; but easy money probably would whet his appetite for more, so it might be worth while to pretend to be fooled, with a view to the future. Yellow was probably the one chariot that could not possibly win. Leander would simply keep the money and laugh behind Tros’s back. But later ho might try another trick and find himself at Tros’s mercy.
Tros turned on the lower step and tossed a fat purse to Leander’s slave. It contained as much as two years’ pay of a Captain of the Guards. Tros had brought it to give to his friend Olympus, who would pass it along by undiscoverable channels to the priests of far-off Philae. Olympus was the unofficial, unacknowledged, secret link with Philae. The way to get true information about India and even more distant countries was to keep on good terms with the priests of the really ancient Mysteries. Their secret means of information reached to the world’s ends. However, Olympus could wait.
“Very well, Leander, place a bet on Yellow and keep half the profit. See that your slave gets the right odds.”
He didn’t miss the scornful laughter in Leander’s eyes as he turned on his way up the marble stairs between the frescoed walls. In the same sort of unexplainable way that he could smell his course through storms and fogs at sea, Tros had a feeling that he would laugh last, and for the better reason. Meanwhile, he went forward, upstairs, wishing lie were going into battle rather than to interview the queen. She had had him watched, as she said she would. Even if he had thought it wise, he couldn’t have sent a message to Hero without the Queen’s knowing it and probably intercepting the message.
The roar from the arena seats — the typical Alexandrine din of men’s and women’s voices shrilling with excitement — filled the air. The tumult almost drowned the blare of music. From the head of the stair, at the end of the passage leading to the royal box, there was a view of sunlit tiers of people as gay to the eye as rows on rows of flowers stirring in the breeze.
The apartments above and behind the royal box were like a section of the palace in miniature, as sumptuously furnished. Slaves came running forward from the buffet-table at the end of a long room on the left, to urge Tros to rest and refresh himself. He refused. The buffet-room was full of over-dressed courtiers, who stared and made witty remarks behind their hands. Everyone knew about the burned trireme. Nobody except Olympus cared to risk Tros’s anger by speaking to him about it.
Olympus, in his official black robes and ancient Egyptian headdress, came and smiled wanly, murmuring official nonsense about conjunctions of stars and burning ships. Then he added, for Tros’s real information:
“If I read the stars aright, the daughter of Zeus-Ammon” (he meant the Queen) “is angry and very well informed, but in too grave peril to afford what malice prompts. Oh Tros, you peril lover! Must you do even your loving perilously? I believe the Queen’s need of a sword preserves you from her vengeance. But she is a Ptolemy. Beware of her!”
“Thank you, Olympus. I will leave word with Esias to have a purse of money ready for you whenever you call.”
Olympus sent a slave to inform the royal chamberlain, who presently came from his seat near the royal box — a splendidly dressed eunuch with secretive, experienced eyes, who was used to being treated deferentially even by Roman ambassadors. He saw fit to be gracious:
“Take you time, Lord Tros. The Queen is in one of her moods, and there is plenty of time before the next race. You have time for a bet. They tell me Red is a certain winner.”
“Bet then on Red and be fortunate, but send my name in to the Queen. She awaits me.”
“Be discreet, Tros. She has had a sleepless night. You will need all your tact.”
“I have it. Lead on.”
“Too bad that you have lost your trireme. Too bad. Too bad. Come and fortify yourself. A little wine — a little pickled fish-roe, or perhaps a plate of birds’ tongues in spiced sauce—”
“Thanks, I am already fortified — with anger. Is the Queen in her box?”
“Yes — yawning. It looks well. The crowd mistakes it for royal boredom. We Alexandrines like our rulers to appear fatigued with luxury. But the truth is, she listened all night to reports from spies.” He stared with his keen, secretive eyes but he could detect no alarm on Tros’s face. “She detests the races, although I daresay she would like them well enough if she might drive her own chariot. But the Alexandrines would -never stand for that. They still hold it against her that she once led her own army. She needs a consort — another man of deeds, not words. Do you know — I have always wished it had been you instead of Caesar! An amazing woman, Tros, amazing — incarnate energy. But I warn you, in a deadly temper. She had a royal row with Charmion this morning. Charmion is in tears at the palace.”
“Lead on.” Tros knew the chamberlain was trying to coax him to indiscretion. He knew, too, that none of the Queen’s ministers knew all her secrets, and that there couldn’t be a worse mistake than to confide in any of them.
“Lead on, lord chamberlain, lead on! My errand is urgent.”
The royal box was a roofed pavilion, banked in front with flowers. At the rear there were rows of raised seats, gay with guests — wreathed courtiers and jewelled women. In the midst, in front of two tall ostrich-feather fans kept in stately motion by slaves who had been deafened and muted for the purpose — was the Queen’s divan with room enough for two or three invited intimates. At the moment there was only one woman seated beside the Queen. There was a second’s sensation — a change in the note of the tumult, as the Argus-eyed crowd saw Tros approach the divan and bow. Everyone knew him by sight. There was never a dearth of stories of his deeds of valor. Everyone knew of the burned ship. He could hear his name being tossed from mouth to mouth.
Cleopatra looked tired, and when she was tired she looked tiny — almost like a child, in her plain Greek dress of silk-like linen, with a kingdom’s worth of pearls. She was the only woman in white; all the other women in the royal party were as brilliant as peacocks; so she looked distinguished. And, despite the chamberlain’s warning, she was as gracious to Tros as he had ever known her. She gave him both her hands to kiss and broke off flowers from her girdle for him to tuck into his jewelled belt. He stuck them into the loop where the buckle was missing. She noticed it. Then she suddenly remembered his leg was wounded, and that the wound was received in a battle in her behalf.
“Give him your seat, Hylas.”
So the young wife of the wealthiest absentee-landlord in Alexandria had to pretend she liked yielding her place beside the Queen to a man who considered her so unimportant that he didn’t even trouble to smile when he nodded his thanks. Tros sat, favoring his wounded leg, waiting for the Queen to speak first and trying to read, what no one ever had read, the intention behind her gaze. Cleopatra’s eyes always had that greenish hue when she was gently friendly seeming but as actually deadly as a netted leopard.
For at, least sixty seconds she was silent, vaguely smiling. She was Ptolemy enough to hate him to the death, but she was statesmanly enough to hide the hatred, if she had it; much too wise to wreak unprofitable vengeance, and not wise enough to let vengeance alone. Raging with inward anger though he was, she could have forgiven him, and have been forgiven. He could build a new, an even better ship. But could she, even with her throne in hourly peril, forgive the insult to her person and her throne that stirred her malice? Tros doubted it.
“And the trireme?” she asked, in the friendliest note of a voice that would have made a courtesan’s fortune.
“Burned to the keel,” he answered. He saw no sense in telling her that he had saved his arrow-engines, ammunition, small arms, and most of the ship’s gear. Perhaps she knew it. If not, so much the better.
“You look, and you sound, as angry as — as—” she laughed, “there is nothing, is there, with which to compare you! No one can be as angry as Lord Captain Tros of Samothrace! Is it the pain of your wound? Do you scowl at me becaus
e someone near Memphis, whom you probably slew for his presumption, shot you with an arrow?”
“Angry? Aye, Egypt, I am.”
“With poor me? Zeus-Ammon shield me! The Lord Tros has come to lecture me again! What on earth shall I do to appease him?”
Tros’s big brown fist was resting on his knees. She laid her own little ivory-white hand on it, smiling at the contrast. Tros scowled at her hand, then at her.
“I will tell you, Egypt, what to do. Once and for all I will say it, then never again, for you are too intelligent to need twice or three times telling. Cease from cat-and-mousing with a man who—”
He hesitated. It hurt his pride to have to sing his own praises; that would be too much like an Alexandrine courtier. She promoted him:
“A man who—”
“Who, at the risk of life and fortune, has kept faith with you first and last.”
“Yes?”
“Egypt, it was you who bade them burn my ship!”
“I?” She was still smiling, but she removed her hand. “What makes you say it? Tros, unguarded conversation, overheard, has caused too many people recently to pay a call on the executioner. A mere trireme?”
“A man’s hope. The fruit of his labors. His means to the end of his heart’s desire!”
Her voice changed. “And are the means I use, toward the end that I perceive, to be used for abuse against me? To be thundered at me? Make a song about the truth, Lord Captain! Sing it to me and my ladies! Sing to us the story of the Queen my sister, whom you spared on the field of battle and so ingeniously pretended to send home to Cyprus! Who is Hero, who hides near Pelusium?”
His blood ran cold, but she only guessed it. He showed her nothing of his thoughts. Not even his eyes changed. Smiling, Cleopatra probed with words that cut like lancets.
“You are not like my Alexandrines, who would desert a woman for a horse-race or a full meal. Now that you have lost your ship, and can’t sail away with this mysterious Hero person, how do you propose to preserve her alive for the enjoyment of your virile passion? Did you imagine me so ill informed, or my arm so short and powerless that it can’t reach Pelusium? Cassius’s agents burned your trireme. Do we understand each other?”