Ancient World 02 - Raiders of the Nile

by Steven Saylor

  “There is no need for Your Majesty to go ashore,” said Zenon. “I myself will—”

  “You yourself have made a mess of things so far!” snapped the king. “Of course I’m going. Bring up the royal wagon!”

  A few moments later, with a loud clattering of hooves, a magnificent vehicle drawn by gaily caparisoned horses arrived on the pier. Assisted by attendants on either side, the king waddled down the gangplank onto the pier, and then up a wide ramp and onto the plushly appointed wagon. The attendants had to get behind him and push the king up the last few steps. The awkward process was painful to watch, especially since the king kept barking at his attendants to hurry.

  Beside me, I heard Bethesda suppress a giggle. Impulsively I covered her mouth with a kiss to silence her.

  The king, who had just fallen back onto a mass of cushions, observed us. “Bring the young lovers, as well.”

  “But Your Majesty, there’s no need—”

  “How do you know? This Roman may know something you don’t. That seems quite likely, since there’s plenty you’ve failed to anticipate in this sorry affair! And bring along some food, as well. You know how hungry I get when I’m nervous. Now hurry, as quickly as you can! To the lighthouse!”

  With a clattering of hooves, the king’s wagon sped off, heading toward the long ramp that led up to the lighthouse entrance. A moment later, a second wagon appeared, this one not quite as magnificent as the first. Several retainers quickly stepped on board, including one who carried a large silver vessel crammed with delicacies.

  The chamberlain grabbed my arm, pulled me to my feet, and hurried toward the wagon. I held Bethesda’s hand and pulled her along behind me. As soon as we were in the wagon, the vehicle sped after the king.

  Up the long ramp we flew, with the horses racing at a frenzied pace. In a matter of moments we arrived at the entrance.

  I had visited the lighthouse once before, but that had been long ago. Even amid all the confusion and clamor, I gazed up in awe. No other building on earth is even nearly as tall. The tower rises in three distinct segments, each stepped back from the one below. At the top is a chamber where flames and mirrors produce the brightest light on earth, and atop that, a statue of Zeus welcomes all the world to Alexandria.

  I had no time to gawk, for the wagon did not pause at the entrance. The huge doors stood wide open. The wagon sped inside.

  The lower half of the lighthouse is four-sided, and hollow in the middle. A continuous ramp built against each of the four interior walls ascends from one story up to the next, and then to the next above that. Up this broad spiral ramp the king’s vehicle raced, with our wagon hurrying to catch up. As we went round and round, ascending from one level to another, terrified workers scattered before us. Mule carts bearing fuel for the beacon were overturned. The smells of naphtha and dung filled my nostrils.

  Up and up we raced, past tall windows facing each of the four directions, affording a view of the sea, then the setting sun, then the city, and then the harbor, in that order, and then the same sequence again—sea, sun, city, harbor—over and over, higher and higher, until at last we reached a level more than midway up the tower, and the wagon came to a halt. The king was already going about the awkward business of alighting from his wagon, assisted by anxious attendants who appeared to fear in equal measure that they might drop the king or else be crushed by him.

  With King Ptolemy leading the way, we stepped through a doorway onto a parapet that circled the outer walls. I drew in a lungful of fresh sea air. Before and below us, as far as the eye could see, sparkled a broad expanse of open water.

  Amid the glitter of waves at sunset, the sea was hard to read. Only after searching for a while did I make out the sail of the Medusa, now well past the harbor entrance and headed north. At such a distance, the ship was the size of a toy on the palm of my hand.

  Then I discerned, to the west of the Medusa, another, larger ship, and then another to her east. They were warships. Their bronze ramming beaks caught the sunlight. They appeared to be converging on the Medusa.

  “Use the mirrors!” screamed the king, even as he reached into a silver bowl of delicacies held forth by an attendant and stuffed a fistful of dates into his mouth. What he said next was an indecipherable mumble.

  Zenon spoke for the king. “Signal the ships that there’s a change of orders. They are not to ram the pirate ship! They are to capture the ship instead and bring it back to harbor, but by no means must they allow it to sink! Do you understand?”

  He spoke to the captain of the crew that manned the huge signal mirror mounted against the wall, midway between the corners of the parapet. There were four such mirrors, one on each side of the tower. The captain looked fretful.

  “Go ahead, you fool!” barked Zenon. “What are you waiting for? Is the message too complicated?”

  “No, no, Your Excellency, we can give those signals readily enough. But the sunlight—”

  “I can see the sun right there!” Zenon pointed to the half-circle of red that glowed above the western horizon.

  “Yes, Your Excellency, but I fear the light’s not strong enough. And the angle—”

  “Do what you can! Now! At once!!”

  The crew manning the mirror flew into action, tilting the huge lens of polished metal this way and that, attempting to capture the rays of the sun and send them toward the nearest of the warships. Indeed, I could see a spot of red light flickering on the sail of the ship, which meant that the men aboard must have been able to see the mirror flashing.

  The ship, which had been speeding toward the Medusa, suddenly relented. I could see the row of tiny oars reverse direction in unison and push against the waves.

  “You’ve done it. You’ve done it!” screamed the king, spitting out a mouthful of masticated dates. “Now the other. Now the other!” He pointed at the second warship coming from the east, which continued to race toward the Medusa.

  The crew swung the mirror about, but the position of the sinking sun made it impossible to capture and reflect a sunbeam.

  “It can’t be done!” wailed the captain. He quaked before the fearsome gaze of the king, who was madly chomping a fresh mouthful of dates. “It simply can’t be done!”

  Helpless to intercede, we watched as the warship drove relentlessly toward the Medusa. I felt a stab of empathy, imagining the panic that must have broken out amid the bandits. Captain Mavrogenis would be barking orders at his crew, but to no avail, for the Medusa was no match for an Egyptian warship. Did Ujeb quiver with terror, or was he facing his end with unexpected bravery? Poor Ujeb, who had saved me! Had Ujeb not proclaimed me the new leader, Bethesda and I would still be aboard the Medusa, locked inside the cabin and facing certain death.

  And what of the sarcophagus? I realized why the king and his chamberlain were so desperate to stop the sinking of the pirate ship. Against their expectations, contrary to their plan, the sarcophagus—and not its worthless replica—had been loaded onto the Medusa. If the Medusa sank, the golden sarcophagus of Alexander would be lost forever.

  So it came to pass. As we watched in horror, the ramming beak of the warship struck the Medusa. A heartbeat later I heard the tremendous crack. The pirate ship broke in two. The sail collapsed. The mast crashed into the water. With stunning swiftness, the two halves of the ship reeled and pitched in the waves and then vanished.

  I gasped. Bethesda covered her face. The chamberlain bowed his head. The captain in charge of the mirror swayed as if he might fall. The king choked on the dates and began to hack like an Egyptian housecat with a hairball.

  Attendants rushed to pound their fists against the king’s back, until at last a great wad of chewed dates shot from his mouth, flew beyond the parapet, and plummeted down to the blood-red sea.

  XXXVII

  As dawn broke the next morning, once again I found myself separated from Bethesda.

  And, through no choice of my own, I was reunited with Artemon.

  With manacles on our w
rists and ankles and chained to opposite walls, the two of us sat across from each other on the straw-covered floor of a bare stone room. High above our heads a little window covered by iron bars admitted the only light. I had been delivered to this dank cell with a sack over my head, but I had some idea of its location, because from time to time, from the little window, I heard animal noises—a monkey’s screech, an elephant’s trumpet—which meant that we must be near the zoological gardens within the royal palace.

  For several hours after the manacles were clamped onto me, I had been alone in the cell. Night came, and with it, complete darkness. Then the door had opened, and soldiers had delivered another prisoner. As they chained him to the opposite wall, by the light of their torches I could see it was Artemon.

  The soldiers left, and the room was totally dark again. I spoke a few words to Artemon, but he made no answer. He was so quiet I couldn’t even hear him breathing.

  Overwhelmed by exhaustion, I slept like a dead man. When I woke at the first feeble light of dawn from the barred window, I saw that Artemon, too, was awake. He looked haggard and drawn, as if he hadn’t slept all night. The bloody bandages around one of his shoulders I took to be the result of Cheelba’s attack, along with a wound down one side of his face that would leave a large and ugly scar.

  “Do you think we’re the only ones left alive?” I said.

  Artemon sat unmoving with his back against the wall and his eyes closed.

  “Of all the men who were aboard the Medusa, I mean. Do you think all the others are dead?”

  Artemon opened his eyes, but didn’t look at me. He stared into space.

  I coughed and cleared my throat, longing for a drink of water. “I ask, because it may have some bearing on how long the king lets me live. My little life can’t have much value to him, except that I might yet provide a few clues as to what went wrong with his plans for the golden sarcophagus. I only hope that dour chamberlain doesn’t insist on torturing me to get some answers, since I’d gladly tell him all I know. But I don’t suppose I’ll have a choice about that—”

  “They’re all dead,” said Artemon, finally breaking his silence. He still wouldn’t look at me. His voice was so lifeless and cold that it raised hackles on my neck. “The captains of the two warships had orders to kill any survivors.”

  “What about the men who fell during the raid? It’s possible that some were only wounded—”

  “Any man we left behind in the city, who somehow survived, was also to be killed.” Artemon’s lips twisted into a grim semblance of a smile. “I was the one who insisted on that stipulation, but Ptolemy readily agreed. There were to be no survivors, no witnesses … no one who might figure out what had happened and come looking for me later, seeking revenge … and no one who knew where all that treasure was buried, back at the site of the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

  “You told me there was nothing in those buried crates worth digging up.”

  “I lied.”

  He spoke without emotion. His lack of any remorse in the aftermath of so much deceit and death was appalling, but I tried to hide my reaction. The important thing was to keep him talking, so as to learn as much as I could from him.

  “What about Metrodora?” I said. “The last I saw of her, she was alive, on the wharf, holding onto the kidnapped girl. Then she seemed to vanish.”

  “Why not? She is a witch.” Again, staring into space, he flashed that grim smile. “Metrodora alone was meant to survive. She … and the girl. On my orders, Captain Mavrogenis took them ashore while the raid was taking place. He locked the girl in a room in the customs house, and gave the key to Metrodora.”

  “So you intended to come back for the girl later. After the fake sarcophagus was loaded and the ship set off, you were going to jump off the Medusa and swim to the royal barque, while the Medusa sailed to its destruction. Then you and Metrodora would collect your payment from the king and go your separate ways—with you taking the girl. Is that right?”

  He nodded.

  “Was Metrodora your partner all along?”

  “Almost from the day we met. She helped me, and I helped her. You saw how the two of us ran the Cuckoo’s Nest. I gave the orders, but it was Metrodora who knew how to use their fears and hopes to control them. She called it witchcraft. Maybe it was. Between the two of us, there seemed to be nothing we couldn’t get those fools to believe, and nothing we couldn’t trick them into doing.”

  Again I suppressed my revulsion. I had never met a man so calculating or so callous. “But at the very end, something went wrong between you and Metrodora. I saw her holding onto the girl, trying to keep you from taking her.”

  “At the last moment, when I told Metrodora there had been a change of plans—that I was going to board the ship after all, take the girl and the golden sarcophagus with me and make a run for it—she refused to come along. She thought I was mad. I suppose I was.”

  He finally looked me in the eye, with a gaze so full of hatred it made my blood run cold. I swallowed hard and studied the chains holding him, making sure there was no way he could reach me.

  “You’re the one who caused the trouble,” he said. “You forced the change of plans when you spotted the substitution. No one else noticed, except you—and then you had to point it out to everyone. Then you attacked me when I boarded the ship. Who are you, Roman? You call yourself Pecunius, but Metrodora told me your name is Gordianus. Why did you come to the Cuckoo’s Nest? And how is it that you’re still alive?”

  I realized why Artemon had decided to talk to me. Just as I wanted to resolve certain questions that only he could answer, so he wanted to understand the man who had ruined all his carefully laid plans.

  “You ask who I am, Artemon, and I’ll tell you. But first, let me see if I understand exactly what happened. Whose idea was this scheme to steal—or pretend to steal—the sarcophagus of Alexander? Did it originate with you, or with King Ptolemy?”

  “It all started when the king’s chamberlain, that stick insect, Zenon, first contacted me a few months ago, through intermediaries. The messages we exchanged were tentative at first, as we felt each other out. Then the plan seemed to hatch itself, and we were off and running. Some nights I could hardly sleep for the excitement. The fact that I had to keep the scheme a secret from everyone at the Cuckoo’s Nest made it all the more thrilling. Even Metrodora knew only the bare outlines.”

  “What was in it for the king? What did he hope to gain from it?”

  “Enough gold to pay his troops!” Artemon laughed harshly. “The king is desperate. His brother’s forces far outnumber his own, and they’ll be here any day now. His own men have been deserting him for months. It’s because he’s run out of money. Ah, but how to get some more? By melting down some fabulous treasure—but which one? For the king’s needs, only the grandest treasure of all would suffice: the golden sarcophagus of Alexander.”

  “The people would never stand for such a sacrilege,” I said.

  “Exactly. But what if the sarcophagus were to be stolen? What if there was a daring raid, and pirates absconded with it? Or better yet, pirates led by some traitorous member of the king’s own family, some wicked bastard cousin and pretender to the throne?”

  “The people would still be furious.”

  “Yes, but in such a circumstance their fury could be directed away from the king. If he lacked enough soldiers to protect the sarcophagus, whose fault was that? He could say, ‘I might have stopped those scoundrels, if the few soldiers I have left weren’t busy quelling that riot over at the Temple of Serapis!’ In the end it would be the fault of everyone but the king—his brother, for marching on the city and causing chaos, and his own troops, for deserting their posts, and the people themselves, for going on a rampage and distracting the few loyal soldiers left, who should have been defending the city’s greatest treasure instead of putting out fires.”

  “But in fact, the sarcophagus was not to be carried off. It was to stay here in Alexandria.…”

/>   “Where the king could strip the jewels and melt down the gold. As if by magic, the royal treasury would be full again. The king could buy back his army, and have so much gold left over he could pay off the invaders as well.”

  “But what if the plot had been discovered?” I said. “What if something went wrong—as it did?”

  “It was a risky business, to be sure. But the king had little choice. A wild gamble was the only thing that could save him.”

  “And you, Artemon? What was in this scheme for you?”

  For the first time, his features softened a bit. He stared into space and sighed. “The days of the Cuckoo’s Gang were numbered. Whoever ends up on the throne in Alexandria, the destruction of the bandit gangs in the Delta will become his highest priority. For a while, I thought about fleeing to Crete and taking the gang with me. Crete is wide open, they say—but that means every bandit king and pirate captain in the world is headed there, thinking to make himself master of the island. That’s too much competition.” He shook his head. “For all its delights, banditry is a dangerous profession. I’d had enough. I wanted a way out, preferably with my head on my shoulders, a royal pardon, and enough gold to last me a lifetime.

  “So, when Zenon contacted me and put forth his scheme, it seemed that my prayers had been answered. I responded cautiously at first, and then with more and more enthusiasm. It was fascinating work, planning all the details of the raid. It was I who suggested that the Jackal would be the perfect man to make the duplicate wagon and crate, and the fake sarcophagus to put inside it.

  “And when it was all over, with a full pardon from the king and a very large payment for myself and for Metrodora, I could travel anywhere I wished. I could begin a new life with…”

  “With Axiothea?”

  He bowed his head. “Yes. But then you had to spoil everything. You and that stupid lion!”

  He glared at me and lurched against his chains. I flinched and pressed myself against the wall, but the chains held him fast.

  “The kidnapping of Axiothea,” I said. “Whose idea was that? The Jackal’s?”