Ancient World 02 - Raiders of the Nile

by Steven Saylor

  “Yes, that surprised me,” I said. “I was afraid there might be a bloodbath.”

  Melmak shook his head. “A bloodbath takes a lot of work—all that hacking, and cleaning up the mess afterward. It simply wasn’t worth the soldiers’ time. I suspect their commander ordered them to stop the scandalous show and break up the crowd, and that’s exactly what they did—no more and no less.”

  “But why?”

  “Because the king isn’t paying them! He’s not paying anyone any longer—not the workers in the Library or the clerks in the Museum, or the stokers at the Pharos Lighthouse, not even the zookeepers in the royal gardens. He’s run out of money, and everyone knows it. Instead of gold or silver or even copper, people on the royal payroll are being issued promissory notes drawn on the royal treasury. A royal decree has ordered all merchants to extend credit based on those notes, but more and more merchants are now openly refusing to do so. So everyone in royal service is doing as little as possible—including the soldiers. Alexandria is grinding to a standstill.”

  “I hadn’t realized things had gotten so bad,” I said.

  Axiothea nodded. “Bad, and likely to get worse. So says…” Her voice trailed off.

  I raised an eyebrow. “You were about to quote someone?”

  Melmak flashed a knowing smile. “Axiothea was about to quote her mysterious patron.”

  “Patron?” I said.

  “Perhaps you noticed that fancy litter at the front of the audience?”

  “Yes. I saw it arrive.”

  “It seems the fellow inside has taken quite a fancy to our Axiothea.”

  “I never got a glimpse of him.”

  “Neither have we! Nobody knows who he is—except Axiothea. Every now and again, she goes missing for a day or two, and then comes back smelling of some expensive new perfume, and we all know she’s been visiting her rich friend. But will she invite us along? Or even tell us the fellow’s name, or where she’s going, or how long she’ll be gone? No!”

  “Believe it or not, Melmak, some things are none of your business.” Axiothea smiled, but it seemed to me she was straining to keep an even tone.

  “Melmak is just jealous,” said Lykos. “He wishes some wealthy lady would choose him to be her favorite, and shower him with gifts, the way Axiothea’s patron showers her.”

  One of the actors nodded. “That’s why Melmak insists on doing his juggling routine before the show, prancing about practically naked and showing off those muscles—hoping some rich filly will take notice and invite him home with her. Get himself a nice, comfy spot doing stud service, and then—goodbye to acting!”

  They all shared a laugh at this, even Melmak. Axiothea visibly relaxed.

  The sun was hot but the shade was pleasant. Our stomachs were full. Everyone had consumed a generous share of the beer, drinking from the same cup—including the monkey. Because it was my birthday, they had insisted that I drink a double share, and I had not refused.

  While the two women stood to one side, talking, we men sat in a circle around the big palm tree, facing outward, leaning back against the trunk with our legs outstretched. I began to doze. When Bethesda crouched down beside me and touched my hand, I had to struggle to open my eyes.

  “Master, Axiothea wishes to go to the little open-air market off the waterfront. You can see a bit of it, just over there.”

  “Yes, and I was wondering if Bethesda could go with me,” said Axiothea. She stood over me with her hands on her hips, wearing an expression that said she wouldn’t take no for an answer. If Bethesda were a free woman, would she be as brash and willful as her double?

  I hummed and nodded, half-asleep. “I don’t see why not.” Then I smiled, for I happened to know that Bethesda had recently stored up a few coins by sometimes keeping the change when I sent her to make a purchase. She must have brought those coins with her, I thought, and now she intended to spend her meager treasure to buy me a birthday present. I closed my eyes again, and thought how sweet she was … how very, very sweet.…

  My dream was sweet as well, doubly sweet, for I was back in my little room in Rhakotis, which was filled with dappled sunlight, and naked in the bed with me I beheld not one but two Bethesdas, equally beautiful, equally loving, equally delightful. The dream went on for quite some time, with each development more exciting than the last, until there was a knock at my door. Though the two Bethesdas both laughed and playfully tried to hold me back, I insisted on seeing who it was. I got out of bed and opened the door, but the hallway was empty. Or was it? The passage was dimly lit, but at the far end, almost lost in shadows, I thought I saw a figure. His face was hidden, but I could see that he wore a Roman toga. Something about his posture alarmed me. He held himself in an unnatural way, clutching himself as if he were in pain. I heard him moan. My heart began to race.

  “Father?” I whispered. “It that you?”

  I woke in a cold sweat, chilled by the breeze from the harbor. For a long moment I stared at the distant Pharos Lighthouse, my mind unable to comprehend it. This happened to me from time to time in Alexandria; I would wake with no sense of where I was, and feel confused, as if I had never left Rome and suddenly found myself in a place completely strange to me.

  But of course, the place was not strange. I had come to know the waterfront of Alexandria better than I knew many parts of Rome. My acute disorientation faded. I had a slight headache—from the beer, no doubt. The chill quickly passed as the breeze blew the sweat from my body. The sunlight felt warm on my skin. I was in Alexandria on a beautiful afternoon, and all was well. I yawned and stretched and looked around.

  I was alone.

  The members of the mime troupe had vanished.

  So had Bethesda.

  V

  “Bethesda!” I called, thinking she must be nearby. I got to my feet, feeling a bit stiff. My head was pounding. I peered up and down the waterfront.

  “Bethesda!” I called again, louder.

  There was no response. Above my head, a seagull squawked. To my befuddled senses, the noise sounded suspiciously like laughter.

  How long had I been asleep? Judging by the position of the sun, it could not have been more than an hour. Could she still be at the nearby market, shopping?

  And where had the actors gone? I looked around and saw no trace of them except scattered date pits and other detritus from our midday feast.

  I scanned the area again, making sure there was no sign of Bethesda, then headed toward the market.

  The place was a maze of small tents and partitioned stalls, deliberately meant to slow one’s progress and baffle the eye. If a person wished to hide, such a crowded, jumbled market would be an ideal place. Was Bethesda teasing me, playing a game of hide-and-seek? That did not seem like her.

  I made my way through the market, trying not to be distracted by all the hanging baubles and trinkets and pots and pans. Almost every vendor offered a selection of souvenirs for tourists, including little images of the Pharos Lighthouse for every budget, rendered in cheap pottery or glass or ivory. At the stall of a garment vendor I spotted a green dress that looked almost exactly like the one I had bought for Bethesda, for a much cheaper price, but when I took a closer look, I could see that it was of inferior linen and shoddily made.

  I reached the end of the market without seeing Bethesda. I turned around and made my way through the stalls again, and still did not see her. I went back to the palm tree, thinking she might have returned in my absence, but she wasn’t there.

  I began to feel uneasy.

  I went from stall to stall in the market, questioning the vendors. A few were so unfriendly they wouldn’t talk to me, probably because of my Roman accent—a prejudice I encountered from time to time in Alexandria—but a few of them remembered seeing the two pretty girls dressed in green.

  “Like twins!” said a mustachioed rug-seller, with a lecherous gleam in his eye. “I certainly wouldn’t forget those two. Giggling and whispering to each other and acting silly, th
e way girls do.” This did not sound like the Bethesda I knew, who carried herself at all times with a quiet, catlike grace. Away from me, in the company of another female, did she behave with less restraint?

  “Oh, but that must have been an hour ago,” said the rug-seller. “They took a quick look at my wares, said something rude about my mustache—silly girls!—and then moved on. I haven’t seen them since.”

  Nor had any of the other vendors, it seemed. Bethesda and Axiothea had certainly visited the market, and had been noticed by several of the vendors, but this had happened an hour ago, when I first began to doze under the palm tree. No one knew when they left or in what direction they headed.

  Bethesda and Axiothea seemed to have spent the most time in the garment stall, comparing their own dresses to the inferior version on sale there, to the displeasure of the old woman in charge of the stall, who thus had reason to remember them. She gave curt answers to all my questions, but then, as I was leaving, she lowered her voice. “But now that you’ve reminded me, I did notice something a bit odd.…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m trying to think. Yes, it was at the same time that those girls came in to look at my garments. I noticed a couple of fellows hanging about, peering this way and that. I didn’t like the look of them.”

  “What did these men look like? How were they dressed?”

  She shrugged. “Common tunics, nothing special. It wasn’t their clothes I noticed. It was the expression on their faces. They were up to no good.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “When you work in a market like this, you learn to tell who’s a customer and who’s not. You also learn to spot the ones who are here to steal something. These fellows weren’t here to shop. They weren’t locals from the neighborhood. Nor were they tourists, passing through. And they didn’t have the look of petty thieves or pickpockets, if I’m any judge. So why were they here, hanging about, and what were they up to? Nothing good, that’s for sure.”

  “Were they following the girls?” I heard my voice break.

  “That’s what I’m asking myself. I was just about to shoo the girls from the stall when I noticed those two men. Then the girls left, giggling—richly amused by the dirty looks I was giving them, I suppose.”

  “And the two men?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t remember seeing them again, after that. They must have moved on, but I don’t know which way they went. Perhaps they followed the girls. Or perhaps they didn’t.” She shrugged.

  At last I returned to the waterfront, feeling completely stumped.

  Should I return to my room in Rhakotis? The chance that Bethesda would have gone there, without me, seemed remote. Nevertheless, if she had gone back, she would have been able to let herself in, for the door had no lock and key. (The only lock was a simple block of wood that swiveled to bar the door from the inside, to insure our privacy when we slept or were otherwise engaged; security was provided by the landlord and his wife, who lived on the ground floor and kept an eye on people coming and going.)

  There was another possibility: that Melmak had forcibly taken her. He had mentioned wanting to use her in his troupe and had offered to pay me. I had refused, and that seemed to end the discussion. Melmak had seemed like a nice enough fellow, but what did I really know about him, or about Axiothea?

  What if Melmak had put some sort of drug in my beer, causing me to fall asleep even as Axiothea lured Bethesda from my side? That would have allowed the whole troupe to scurry off, absconding with my slave and leaving me to wake up an hour later, alone.

  Then I recalled that we had all drunk the beer from the same cup; it seemed unlikely that Melmak could have drugged my share. Nonetheless, he had encouraged me to drink more than the others, and beer alone could be counted on to put a man to sleep on a warm day.

  I was suddenly certain of it: Melmak had taken Bethesda from me. The scoundrel! Well, I thought, soon enough he would realize his mistake. I had been able to afford Bethesda only because she had been a highly problematic slave, causing nothing but trouble for all her previous masters. Many had owned her for less than a day before returning her to the market. She was the exact opposite of the compliant, obedient slave most men desired. Bethesda could be counted on to put up quite a fight—

  Or could she? If Melmak and the troupe had forcibly taken her, against her will, why had the abduction gone unnoticed by the vendors in the marketplace?

  Because they had befuddled her with beer, I thought, for she too had drunk a small portion. And because they had lied to her, saying that I had gone somewhere and they were taking her to meet me, or spinning some other tale to lure her away quietly. Or because …

  Had she gone with them willingly?

  This thought disturbed me more than any other. Had Bethesda left me to go with the mime troupe of her own volition? If so, why? Was the lure of the acting life so appealing to her? Or … had she grown weary of me? Or—most chilling thought of all—had she never cared for me in the first place? Had all her sighing and moaning during all the hours of our lovemaking been a pretense, a show to please a master whom she secretly despised as much as she had despised all her previous masters? Was that the emotion that lurked behind her unreadable, catlike facade—derision for the feckless young master she had played for a fool?

  No, that was not possible.

  Or was it?

  The fears and doubts that assailed me were most unseemly for a Roman to experience in regard to his slave, no matter how beautiful and alluring and special that slave might be. I experienced many conflicting, confusing emotions at once, but most of all I felt anxious.

  Where was Bethesda?

  I decided that my next course of action would be to seek out the mime troupe. Actors were notorious for keeping no fixed abode, moving from place to place to stay ahead of the disapproving authorities, but surely someone would be able to put me on to their scent. I had spent the last two years in Alexandria practicing my father’s livelihood, making contacts and digging up dirt for others. Now I would put those skills to use for myself.

  *

  So I spent the rest of my birthday crisscrossing Alexandria and inquiring after the mime troupe of Melmak. People knew at once whom I was talking about. “Ah, the troupe with the trained monkey,” some would say, or “the one with those two adorable pipe players,” or (most frequently) “the one with that ravishing young actress who runs through the streets naked!” Many people would also nod if I described a man with a white stripe bisecting his hair and beard, though few knew the artificer Lykos by name.

  Everyone knew Melmak’s troupe, but no one knew where they lived or how to contact them. It was a curious thing, in such a teeming city, that seven males, one female, and a monkey, all so conspicuous when they wished to be, could be so invisible offstage.

  While asking questions about the mime troupe, I also made sure to mention, as if by chance, the waterfront market, just to see if anyone had been there that day. As it turned out, a few of my contacts had indeed gone shopping or at least passed through the market. Unfortunately, I encountered no one who had seen two girls fitting my description of Bethesda and Axiothea—until, toward the end of the day, I dropped in on a pair of elderly eunuchs who were retired from royal service and lived together in a beautifully furnished apartment not far from the palace.

  Their names were Kettel and Berynus. They had never asked me to pay for information, but instead always seemed glad to see me, steering me to a comfortable couch, lighting a bit of incense, and doting over me like aunts with a favorite nephew. The two eunuchs were a font of information about the private lives of just about anyone connected with the palace, but experience had taught me that they were not entirely reliable; they tended to let their imaginations run away with them. Since palace gossip was their specialty, I had no reason to think they would know anything about Melmak, and indeed they did not. But when I mentioned the waterfront market, their eyebrows shot up.

  “Oh, they h
ave the most lovely jewelry there!” Kettel, who was enormously fat, held up one arm. A great mass of flesh hung from the limb like a chicken’s wattle. He shook his plump hand, rattling the bangles at his wrist. “I bought this lovely bronze bracelet there earlier today.”

  “And paid too much!” said Berynus, who was as slender as his companion was fat. He touched a bit of lapis that hung from a chain around his bony neck. “I got this pretty necklace for half the price of that hideous bracelet.”

  “Both pieces are very nice,” I said.

  Kettel tittered at the compliment. Berynus fluttered his eyelashes and reached up to adjust his wig. I took it for granted that both eunuchs shaved their heads, but even in the privacy of their home I had never seen either without an elaborate and expensive-looking hairpiece.

  “What time were you there, at the market?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

  “Oh, a little before midday,” said Kettel. “Any earlier and the prices are too high. Any later and all the good stuff is gone.”

  “I see. Did you happen to notice a beautiful young woman, wearing green, with black hair—?”

  “Why, yes, we did,” said Berynus.

  “That’s right, we did,” said Kettel.

  My heart skipped a beat. “You both seem very certain.”

  Berynus raised an eyebrow. “That’s because we had an argument.”

  “An argument? Did you speak to her?”

  “No, no, no. Not an argument with her; an argument about her. Neither of us spoke to her. We only saw her. Except we didn’t see the same thing,” said Kettel.

  “What do you mean?”

  They looked at each other, as if deciding who should speak first. Kettel began. “I had to leave the market for a moment, to attend to the call of nature. Up the street, a block past the market and around a corner, there’s a public latrina. When I finished and stepped outside, a little farther up the street I saw the very girl you’ve just described. She was being dragged off by a couple of rather rough-looking fellows, and putting up quite a fight.”