Dog-Headed Death: A Gaius Hesperian Mystery

by Ray Faraday Nelson

  * * * *

  At the front door, as it were, of Alexandria was the Mediterranean Sea; at the back door was Lake Mareotis. It was here, in the neighborhood of the “back door” of the city, in the ruddy glow of the setting sun, that Odysseus Memnon’s brother and business partner, Demetrius Memnon, made his way, alone and unattended by his customary retinue of slaves and flunkies.

  He crossed the drawbridge over the Nile Canal, his footsteps sounding hollowly. A heavily-loaded camel blocked his path and Demetrius paused, stepped to one side, biting his lip and swearing under his breath. The camel driver glanced down at him, glanced down at the bald, emaciated little old man who returned the glance with such impatience. The driver spat, narrowly missing his target. Demetrius ducked back not a moment too soon. The driver was not fooled by the rough dirty clothes Demetrius wore; this was clearly a rich man pretending to be poor. Only the rich are in such a hurry.

  The camel passed.

  Demetrius, almost running, continued on his way.

  All along the street yawned the great shadowy mouths of warehouses. There was cargo here, cargo from all over the East, sometimes from as far away as India and China. He was only dimly aware of the busy slaves who labored all around him. They were no more than moving patterns of darkness and red light in the corners of his eye, but he could smell the tea and spices, hear the rumble of barrels on the floor, the shouts of habitually angry overseers. Never mind all that. Here was the dock of the Port-of-the-Lake, and there, masts and rigging a black spider web against the sky, were the merchant ships riding at anchor, vessels of every size and shape almost motionless above their reflections. Beneath his feet he could hear the whispering lap of waves against heavy timber piles as he paused, panting and wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

  He thought, What if I’m late?

  He hastened onward, frightened eyes darting from one ship to another, searching for a certain one.

  There it was! Ah, the gods are merciful!

  It was a trim forty-eight oar Arab felucca with lateen rigging instead of the Roman great square sail, almost too trim to be a merchant vessel. She could have been a fighting ship if she’d had a ram. High up on her prow she had a figurehead, a woman, naked to the waist, wearing an angry expression. Demetrius leaned out over the water, trying to read the Greek characters inscribed on the ship’s ornately carved bow.

  “Ishtar,” he whispered. It was the right ship. He sighed with relief, then glanced around to make sure he was not being followed. All clear!

  He mounted the gangplank, gave the password to two sullen black guards, and found himself on board.

  “Demetrius!” called out a voice, an oily baritone with a thick foreign accent.

  Startled, Demetrius spun around to face the man.

  “Simon?” asked Demetrius uncertainly.

  “Of course.”

  Simon stepped out of the shadows, smirking. He was a short, dark, middle-aged man in the clothing of a well-to-do ship-owner. Rings and necklaces glittered in the dying sun, and he wore his long black hair in braids. He crooked his finger, beckoning almost playfully.

  “Come, Demetrius. We can’t talk out here.”

  Demetrius followed him through a doorway, down a short flight of steps, and, after a pause for Simon to unlock the door, into the captain’s cabin, a windowless little room dimly lit by a few smoky oil lamps. The smoke made Demetrius’ eyes water.

  “Won’t you sit down?” Simon gestured toward a handsomely carved wooden chair next to the table. The furnishings were few, but of the highest quality.

  “Thank you.” Demetrius lowered himself into the chair. Simon sat down across the table from him. The two studied each other in the flickering lamp light, and Demetrius thought: It’s hard to believe this is Simon Baal, a secret agent of King Vologases of Parthia. The Parthian Empire was Rome’s rival to the east, now at uneasy peace with Nero but looking for some way to turn the rebellion of the Jews to Parthian advantage.

  “I have something for you,” said Simon Baal. He disdainfully tossed a bag of coins on the table. Demetrius clutched it instantly. “Aren’t you going to count it?” added the Parthian.

  “No, no, I’m sure it’s right.”

  “Such faith! Such trust! It’s rare anywhere, but particularly in our line of work.” He began absently playing with one of his braids. “But then, King Vologases has always been generous with you and your brother. Right?”

  “And we… we have been loyal to the king.”

  “Yes, you have performed a few little services. I won’t deny it.”

  Demetrius thought about the “little services.” Smuggling weapons and supplies to Rome’s enemies, to the Jews, to the barbarians, to any subversive group that, for one reason or another, aimed to overthrow the government of Nero.

  “And we continue, as always, to place ourselves at your service, and at the service of your gracious monarch.”

  “Of course, yes.”

  “Is there anything we can do to prove once again our loyalty to his Royal Majesty and to you? Perhaps some information?”

  Demetrius had often passed on information to Simon from the Parthian spies in Alexandria, and had occasionally uncovered a few things that even these spies had not been able to find out.

  Simon shook his head. “No. Demetrius. Not this time.”

  “What then? There must be something…”

  “Or I wouldn’t have summoned you here? That stands to reason, doesn’t it?”

  Demetrius nodded mutely.

  “It’s about your brother, Demetrius.” Simon Baal leaned forward, eyes glittering in the feeble light.

  “Odysseus?” Demetrius suddenly felt ill.

  “Yes, the great, the one and only Odysseus Memnon. I have heard reports. Very reliable people have told me your brother has been acting strangely, that he’s starting to take an interest in some insane Jewish superstition. I don’t like that, my friend. The king must be assured of absolute loyalty.”

  “Certainly. This is only…”

  Simon lowered his voice. “There is too much at stake to tolerate the unfortunate whims of a senile old man.”

  “Well, we all understand that.” Demetrius could not meet the Parthian’s gaze. “But I assure you, sir, that my brother’s wife—you remember Adrastia, so young, so beautiful—she is deeply loyal to the Parthian cause. Her father, you know.”

  “He is one of the many Nero has had murdered. So what?”

  “If Odysseus wavers, Adrastia can be trusted to put him back on the right course.”

  “Really? Does she go with him to the meetings of this Jew cult?”

  “No, I don’t think so. She wants nothing to do with such…”

  “This cult has a certain ceremony, a ceremony in which a man gets up in front of a multitude of fellow fanatics and confesses all his sins, tells all his dirty little secrets.”

  “What harm could there be in…”

  “Imbecile!” Simon Baal’s fist struck the table with an angry thump. “This man’s secrets are not his alone! They are mine, and yours, and the king’s!” Demetrius cringed as Simon, calm again, reached across the table to touch him on the back of the hand, murmuring almost gently, “I will not let the fate of nations rest on the alleged fidelity of a woman, or on the discretion of a lunatic. If Odysseus Memnon does anything, or threatens to do anything, that will hinder our plans, it will be your duty, Demetrius, to kill him!”

  Chapter Two

  It was the evening of the following day.

  The flesh-toned paint on the naked statues that surrounded the mansion of Odysseus Memnon had faded slightly, but in the waning afterglow they still seemed as they had seemed when new; almost alive in their disquieting realism, or better, like corpses frozen in a multitude of lifelike postures.
The Hellenistic sculptors had aimed at magnificence but had hit instead a dreamlike quality, a feverish imitation of the decor of our nightmares. They had aimed at an impression of life and hit instead an overwhelming and oppressive impression of death.

  The light dimmed.

  The statues grayed, here a group, there a couple, over there a single figure striking a heroic pose next to a bending palm tree. There were stretches of lawn between them, trimmed hedges in geometric patterns, flowerbeds full of blossoms brought down the Nile from unknown Central Africa, blossoms so exotic they had, as yet, no names.

  This vast park, with all its sculpture, greenery and broad mosaic walkways, was surrounded by a high, spike-topped stone wall. In the center of the front section of this wall stood a massive wood gate, now closed and locked. To one side of this gate was a smaller door, the only other entrance to the estate to be seen.

  Metal clinked against metal.

  The small door opened.

  A rustle, a soft footfall, then the door closed again behind a tall cloaked figure who turned and bent over to lock it with a key on a chain attached to his belt.

  Inside the gate he straightened and glanced around, absently pulling back his hood so it fell loosely to the small of his back. His hair was cut fairly short, sandy-colored and somewhat unkempt; perhaps in imitation of Nero he wore bangs across his forehead. His face was triangular, with deep-set brown eyes and pronounced cheekbones, and his thin lips were curled in a habitual aristocratic half-smile. It was the face of a young philosopher, a young gentleman of wealth and ease, but his body was as hard and muscular as a gladiator’s.

  His sandaled feet took a few steps on the serpentine mosaic of the walkway, then he stopped, listening.

  A dog barked, then another, and another.

  In a moment the pack was in full cry, pounding toward him from the direction of the house.

  He stood motionless, waiting for them.

  They bayed and yelped like wolves as they came, for they were half-wolf and barely tame, trained for only one thing—to kill intruders.

  Still the tall young man, without a sign of fear, stood his ground and waited.

  Now, suddenly, they were upon him, springing up to lick his face with great rasping tongues or to nip playfully at his arms, and he laughed, fending them off, though they were so heavy they occasionally almost knocked him down.

  “Hey there!” he cried. “Hey, now! Don’t you recognize me? I’m only Serapion.”

  Of course they recognized him! Serapion, Odysseus Memnon’s only son. Of course they knew his scent; the smell of the sea with a trace of burning incense. Of course they knew his voice; deep, faintly mocking.

  Surrounded by the milling dogs, Serapion continued on his way. He looked around him as he strode along, short sword bouncing on thigh. He thought, as he had thought so many times before, Beautiful!

  The statues, the walkways, the lawns, the hedges, the palm trees— even the great looming bulk of the mansion that now crouched ahead of him, typically Egyptian—that is, tomb-like—in spite of the token touch of Greek Doric columns around the entrance; it was all, in Serapion’s eyes, beautiful.

  He loved all these things, not because he would someday possess them, but because they represented to him the spirit of Alexandria, the finest city the world had ever known. Because he had always had them, possessions meant nothing to him. But Serapion, whose very name had been taken from that of Osiris-Serapis, his city’s patron deity, loved Alexandria—her history, her science, her philosophy, her mongrel gods—part-Egyptian, part-Greek, and sometimes, part-animal—and loved, finally, even the taint of madness, cruelty and subtle evil that had always clung to her.

  He heard a breeze stir in the palms, smelled, for an instant, the salty Mediterranean, sucked the air deep into his lungs.

  For he loved the sea, too, and ships.

  Unlike his father, who only made money from ships, Serapion was a real sailor, and had captained not only merchant vessels but racing biremes and, in fights against pirates, large combat rammers. Unlike his father, he felt not the faintest desire to imitate the attitudes and customs of the Roman conquerors, and much to his father’s disgust, he turned his back on money matters and instead interested himself in intangible things like philosophy, the world’s religions, in particular the mind-straining complexity of the religion of ancient Osiris-Serapis (which, in this age of scientific unbelief, he perversely persisted in believing in), and, above all, the poetry and beauty of the sea.

  With the good stench of the Mediterranean in his nostrils, he thought, When a man dies, his spirit does not go skyward, but to the sea! That, he believed, was where Amenti, the Western Land of the Ancestors, was actually located. That was where you were guided when the time came to leave your body and go away with the dark god Anubis, Dogheaded Death.

  He shooed the dogs away, mounted the short marble staircase, and entered the house.

  “Master Serapion!”

  “Good evening, Sabella.”

  He removed his cape and handed it to the little slave girl. Under it he wore a bleached linen tunic with a narrow blue stripe on the border and a leather belt with a gold buckle in the shape of a demonic face from which hung his moneybag, dagger and keys. His short sword was on another belt loosely slung from his shoulder.

  “Wait, Sabella…”

  “Yes?”

  “Are the others here yet?”

  “Your mother…”

  “My stepmother!” he corrected her.

  “Your stepmother, yes sir. She in there.” She pointed a skinny finger. Adrastia was not his real mother. It was important to him that no one make that mistake. His real mother, Octavia Memnon, lived in well-heeled exile in Rome. Odysseus had divorced her when she got too old.

  Adrastia was young, almost as young as Serapion.

  They were both in their early twenties, as was Serapion’s sister Hathor, who was a little over a year younger than her brother.

  Old Odysseus had been too sickly since his remarriage to father any children by his second wife, a fact that often led Serapion to say to himself, The gods are not without humor.

  He stopped in the doorway. She had her back to him, examining herself thoughtfully in a hand mirror. Her green silk robes and glittering jewelry were, as usual, breathtaking.

  “May I come in?” he asked softly.

  “Of course, Serapion,” said Adrastia.

  She turned and came toward him.

  They embraced coldly, perfunctorily.

  “My hairdresser,” she said, by way of introduction.

  The hairdresser, a thin, well-groomed white-haired Greek, bowed. Serapion had seen him before but could never remember his name, so he called him—to himself—Old Kissingfish, because of the man’s habit of always puckering up his lips.

  Adrastia seated herself and gossiped with forced gaiety while Serapion, still standing, nodded politely. Kissingfish, with an air of intense artistic absorption, set to work on her elaborate coiffure.

  “Oh Serapion, whatever shall we do about the Jewish problem?”

  “I leave such matters to the proper authorities…”

  “And have you noticed how the prices are going up? I can’t understand it! We live in a decadent age, my dear. It was different when Cleopatra was queen, before the Romans came.”

  “That was before you were born. How do you know…”

  “Well, I can read, can’t I?” She pouted. “Everything is becoming such a bore, don’t you think? Everybody says so.”

  “Please, Madam.” said Kissingfish. “You must try and hold still.”

  “I want my dwarfs,” she said.

  “Dwarfs?” said Serapion.

  She clapped her hands and Sabella appeared at the door.

  “My dwarfs, Sabell
a!”

  “Yes, Mama Adrastia.”

  The black girl left at a run.

  “Why don’t you ever call me ‘Mama,’ Serapion?”

  “You’re too young, my dear.”

  “Hmm. I suppose so.”

  A huge white cat padded in and, without hesitation, leaped into Adrastia’s lap, settled down, blinked a few times, and went to sleep. Adrastia’s wiggling, which had been upsetting the hairdresser, now ceased. She did not, of course, want to disturb the cat.

  She continued to chatter about this and that until Sabella returned with the dwarfs.

  “Ah. Serapion, I want you to meet Suchos, Horus and Bubo,” said Adrastia.

  Serapion bent over and shook hands with the little men, one at a time. Sabella giggled.

  “You may go, Sabella.”

  “Yes, Mama Adrastia.”

  The slave girl backed out, bowing, trying not to laugh.

  Instantly the dwarfs, all three hunchbacked and ugly as toads, began doing handsprings, cartwheels and little dances, making faces all the while. Bubo, their leader, did an imitation of Alexander the Great, head cocked over to one side.

  “Bravo, Bubo!” cried Adrastia, delighted.

  “Madam, please,” pleaded the long-suffering hairdresser.

  Bubo did a deep, sweeping bow.

  Serapion was more annoyed than amused.

  “Adrastia, have you any idea…”

  “Why old Odysseus has called us together tonight?” She shrugged. “He’s got something important to announce. At least he says it’s important.”

  “Give me a hint.”

  “A hint? I don’t know a thing about it myself. The whole Memnon family is invited, that’s all I know—you, me, your sister Hathor, old Demetrius. That stubborn old goat who calls himself my husband—you know how he is! He’s said he won’t tell what it is until after supper, and that’s that!”

  Serapion sighed, then said, with real concern, “I’ve felt for a long time that he was headed for a crisis—a spiritual crisis.”