She shambled slowly along with an uneven gait. The rest of the party checked their strides so as not to get too far ahead of her. There was something profoundly unsettling about the sight of that little retinue headed by the most powerful man in Massilia, towering, big-jawed Apollonides, held back by the twisted form of Cydimache. The moment seemed supremely strange; I realized that I had never before seen such a misshapen mortal in such a context, finely dressed and dining in a place of honor among the rich and powerful. One only ever sees such wretched creatures wearing rags, sleeping in gutters, and begging in the poorer parts of town. No one knows where they come from; no one can imagine how they continue to exist. Respectable Roman families would never allow such a monster to live, or if they did, would hide it away and never be seen with it in public. But to become a Timouchos required offspring, and Cydimache had been Apollonides’s only child; he could not deny her. It might even be, as Milo said, that Apollonides loved her, as any man might love his only daughter. I thought of my own daughter in Rome—Diana, so bright and beautiful—and felt pity for Apollonides.
And what of the young man who walked beside Cydimache, solicitously holding her arm, though his support did nothing to straighten her crooked gait? I had heard that Zeno was handsome, and he was. He had the kind of dark, brooding good looks that one associates with wild young poets. His dark hair was disheveled and his eyes had a haunted look. He had removed his battle armor but still wore his light blue officer’s cape. Something in his defeated posture played upon my memory, and I suddenly realized that he must be the officer I had seen that afternoon on the sole returning ship, standing alone on the prow and facing away from the spectators on the city walls.
I noticed something else about him. It was not immediately apparent because the uneven gait of Cydimache was so much more pronounced, but Zeno, too, was limping slightly, favoring his left leg.
XVII
There were no speeches to start the evening, not even a welcome from Apollonides. Had the day turned out differently—had Massilia scored a great victory—everyone would have been happy to listen to speeches and toasts that reiterated to infinity what everyone already knew; boasting and gloating would have been not just permissible but imperative. Instead, what had been planned as a celebration felt more like a funeral, but even at a funeral the guests might have been more cheerful.
I had wondered how Apollonides planned to mount a banquet when the city was facing famine. The ingenuity of his cooks was commendable. I had never seen such exquisitely prepared and presented food served in such tiny portions or in courses spaced so far apart. In any other circumstance it would have been laughable to be served a course consisting of a single olive (and not even a large one) garnished with a small sprig of fennel. This was presented on a tiny silver plate, perhaps intended to trick the eye into perceiving a double image. Milo grunted and quipped, “So what do you think of the new Massilian cuisine, Gordianus? I can’t see it catching on in Rome.” No one laughed.
The dining couch I shared with Davus was placed in such a way that if I looked past Domitius and Milo I could see the nearby U-shaped array of couches where Apollonides and his party were disposed. Because of the dim lighting, I could hardly see their faces, much less read their expressions, but even their vague silhouettes were a study in dejection. When there was a lull in the murmur of Latin around me, I could overhear their conversation. Increasingly, as more wine was served, I heard one strong, ringing voice above the others. It was the voice of Zeno.
Meanwhile, Domitius and Milo kept up a rancorous, rambling conversation. It turned out that the Roman in charge of the so-called relief fleet was a certain Lucius Nasidius. I didn’t know him, but they did, and had strong opinions to express. Neither Domitius nor Milo was surprised that the fellow had hung back from the battle and then turned tail when he saw the day going badly for the Massilians; either of them could have told Pompey never to dispatch a shirker like Nasidius on such a critical mission; this disaster was merely the latest in a unending stream of bad decisions by Pompey; if only one of them had been in charge of that fleet…and so on.
Occasionally Domitius or Milo tried to draw me into their exchange. I answered absentmindedly, straining my ears to pick up the conversation from Apollonides’s little group. From the bits I was able to overhear, my suspicion was confirmed: Zeno had commanded the ship that sailed back with news of the crushing defeat. As Zeno began to talk about the battle, the murmur of Latin around me died down. Even Domitius and Milo fell silent. They kept their eyes straight ahead, but like everyone else within earshot, they began to eavesdrop.
“They don’t fight like ordinary men,” Zeno was saying.
“And upon what vast reservoir of experience do you base that observation, son-in-law?” asked Apollonides sharply. “How many battles have you fought in?”
“I fought in this one! And if you’d been there, you’d know what I mean. There was something almost supernatural about them. One always hears talk about the gods overseeing battles, lifting up fallen warriors, urging them on; but I don’t think it was the gods out there on the water today, driving the victors. It was Caesar; the inspiration of Caesar. They shout his name to keep up each other’s spirits, to shame the laggards, to frighten their enemies. I saw things today I never would have believed, the sort of things you hear in songs. Terrible things….”
In the dim light I saw the veiled form of Cydimache move closer to her husband on the couch they shared, not quite touching him, as if to give comfort simply by drawing near. Did Apollonides, seated across from them, scowl? His gray silhouette sat upright, arms crossed, shoulders stiff, jaw thrust out.
Zeno went on, his words low but clear. Occasionally, when his voice grew thick with emotion, he swallowed and pressed on. “The things I saw today! Blood—fire—death…. There were—there were two Romans—identical—they must have been twins. They were on a Roman galley that was trying to draw alongside and board us. The Romans cast grappling hooks at us, but the hooks fell short. They kept trying to close the distance. We kept maneuvering away. Their men outnumbered ours; they’d have overwhelmed us. Our only hope was to draw far enough away to use our catapults against them, or, if we could, swing into ramming position. But the Roman captain kept after us like a hound after a bitch. At one point they drew so close that some of their men jumped aboard. Only a handful—eight or ten—not nearly enough to take command of the ship. Such braveness, almost madness! They did it for glory, you see. If the Romans finally did manage to catch us with grappling hooks and swarm over us, these men could have boasted that they were the first aboard.
“Leading these Romans who jumped on board were two twins. I saw them that close, close enough to see that they were absolutely identical. It was unnerving, like a vision, like some prodigy sent by the gods to confound us. Confusion kills a man faster than anything else in battle. One instant of uncertainty—a blink, a glance from face to face, another blink—and you’re dead! They were young, these two, young and handsome, both grinning and yelling and cutting the air with their swords.
“But one of them was careless. He stepped too far ahead of his companions, exposed himself to an attack from the side. One of my men surprised him with a chopping blow—sliced the Roman’s right hand clean off, the hand that was clutching his sword. The Roman never stop grinning! No, that’s not exactly true; his grin turned into something else, but it was still a kind of grin, ghastly, frozen on his face. Blood spurted from his severed wrist. He stared at it, dumbfounded, but still with that mad grin. You’d think that would have been the end of him, but he didn’t even stagger. Do you know what he did? He bent over, reached down with his left hand, and picked up the sword that was still in the grip of his severed right hand. It’s unbelievable, I know, but I saw it! He managed to get hold of the sword, and then he stood up and continued to fight. He was shielding his brother, protecting him, being completely careless of his own safety. He must have known that it was over for him; he’d never survive t
he loss of so much blood. He swung both arms recklessly—swung his sword, swung the severed wrist from which blood spurted in great jets.
“My men fell back, horrified, sickened by the spray of blood. I managed to rally them and together we rushed him. The Roman raised his left arm high in the air. His sword was poised to come down on my skull. I thought in that instant I would surely die—but he never managed to bring down his sword. One of my men came up from the side and delivered a two-handed blow that lopped off the Roman’s left arm at the elbow. The blood! The sight of him—!”
For a long moment Zeno paused. Everyone in earshot had fallen silent to listen. Cydimache moved closer to him but did not touch him. Zeno shuddered and gasped, then drew a deep breath and went on.
“His severed right wrist was still gushing blood. His severed left elbow was pouring out gore. Horrible! And still he didn’t fall. He stood upright and screamed a single word through his clenched teeth. Do you know what it was? ‘Caesar!’ Not the name of his mother. Not the name of his twin. Not the name of a god, but ‘Caesar!’ His brother joined him, and then the other Romans, until they were all screaming the name of Caesar as if it were a curse upon us.
“We had them now, you see. Our ship had managed to pull clear from the Roman galley. The Romans on board were stranded. My men had rallied. We greatly outnumbered them. The Romans had no hope. But still the wounded Roman—armless, handless—still he protected his brother. He screamed the name of Caesar and threw himself against us, thrashing this way and that, using his mutilated body itself as a weapon. It was uncanny, monstrous, like something from a nightmare.
“For a moment…for a moment I panicked. I thought: This is end of us. This is all it will take. These ten Romans, if they’re all like this one, these ten alone will be able to kill us all and seize control of the ship. They’re not men, they’re demons!
“But they were only men, of course, and they died like men. They might have leaped into the sea to save themselves, tried to swim back to their ship or to some other Roman vessel, but instead they stood their ground and fought. The mutilated Roman finally fell. We stabbed him all over. The wounds hardly bled, he had lost so much blood already. His face was as white as a cloud. He was still grinning that horrible grin when his eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled to the deck.
“His twin cried ‘Caesar!’ and threw himself against us, weeping. He was mad with grief, careless. I stabbed him in the belly, then the throat. I was shocked at how easily he died. The rest of the Romans…were harder to kill. They took two Massilians for every Roman. Even after they were all dead, and we had thrown their bodies into the sea, they kept on killing us. Their blood itself killed us! The deck was so slippery with the stuff that one of my men—the one who’d landed the first blow that severed the Roman’s wrist—fell and broke his neck. He died instantly, flat on his back, his neck twisted, his eyes wide open, staring at the heavens.”
Complete silence had fallen over the garden. The guests in the farthest corners had ceased conversing, and the slaves bearing trays beneath the colonnade had stopped to listen. Even the Artemis who stood in the dry fountain seemed to pause and listen, her bow frozen in her hands and her head tilted slightly to one side.
Cydimache moved closer to her husband. Zeno, his head bowed, reached out and laid his hand gently on her cloaked arm, as if she were the one who needed comforting.
Apollonides sat motionless, aware of the sudden, utter silence and of the spell that Zeno’s words had cast over everyone. “A bad day for Massilia,” he finally said, his voice almost a whisper.
Zeno let out a bitter laugh. “A bad day, fatherin-law? Is that all you can say? It’s nothing compared to the days to come!”
“Lower your voice, Zeno.”
“Why, First Timouchos? Do you imagine there are spies among us?”
“Zeno!”
“The fact is, this is all your fault, you and the others who voted to side with Pompey against Caesar. I warned you! I told you—”
“Quiet, Zeno! That question was argued at the proper place and time. A decision was made—”
“By a group of half-witted old misers who couldn’t see the future when it slapped them in the face. We should never have closed our gates to Caesar! When he came to us, seeking our help and promising his protection, we should have opened them wide and welcomed him in.”
“No! Massilia has always been loyal to Rome. Nothing has changed that and nothing ever will. Pompey and the Senate are Rome, not Caesar. Caesar is a usurper, a traitor, a—”
“Caesar is the future, fatherin-law! When you spurned him, that’s what you turned your back on. Now Massilia has no future, thanks to you.”
Cydimache laid her hand upon Zeno’s arm, either to comfort him or restrain him, or both.
At this gesture of wifely devotion, Apollonides bridled. “Daughter! How can you sit there and listen to this man when he speaks to your father in such a way?”
Cydimache made no answer. I peered at her cloaked figure in the dim light. It seemed to me that she was like an oracle that would not speak—obscure, mysterious, in this world but not entirely of it. I could see nothing at all of her deformed face or body, yet her posture spoke undeniably of torn loyalties and heartbreaking grief—or did I only imagine this, misreading the silhouette of a veiled hunchback?
Zeno extricated himself from her touch—not brusquely, but tenderly—and stood. “All I know, fatherin-law, is that while I was out there today, watching our ships go up in flames or crack apart and vanish in the waves, I didn’t hear men yelling your name, or Pompey’s name, or ‘For the Timouchoi!’ I heard men crying ‘Caesar!’ They screamed his name as they killed, and they screamed it as they died. And the men crying ‘Caesar!’ were the men who won the battle. I expect they shall be crying ‘Caesar!’ when they bring down the walls of Massilia. ‘Caesar!’ will be the name we hear as they cut our throats, and ‘Caesar!’ will be in the ears of our wives and daughters when they’re stripped and raped and carried off to be slaves.”
This was too much for many of the listeners. There were gasps, grunts, cries of “Shame!” and “Hubris!”
Even in the dim light, I could see that Apollonides trembled with fury. “Go!” he whispered hoarsely.
“Why not?” said Zeno. “I’ve lost my appetite, even for this pathetic fare. Come, wife.”
Apollonides turned his gaze to Cydimache, who seemed to hesitate. At last she rose laboriously to her feet and stood, hunched over, beside her husband. With excruciating slowness, the two of them left the garden, Cydimache shambling along, Zeno limping slightly and holding her arm. Apollonides kept his gaze straight ahead.
In the wake of Zeno’s exit, the party became strangely animated. The buzz of low conversation came from every corner. People felt obliged to share their outrage at Zeno, or their agreement with him; or perhaps they felt obliged to babble simply to fill the awkward silence.
“Stay here,” I whispered to Davus.
As I stepped past Milo, he pointed over his shoulder and muttered, “You’ll find them that way,” thinking I was searching for the latrinae. “Primitive, compared to Roman plumbing,” he added.
I took a roundabout way, so that it would not be too obvious that I was following Zeno. There was enough movement among the guests and the serving slaves that I attracted no attention.
They had disappeared through a doorway that opened off one of the colonnades. The doorway led to a long, wide hallway. I walked quickly, glancing into the rooms on either side, seeing no one until I came to the far end of the passage, which opened onto yet another courtyard, this one much smaller and more intimate than the one where the dinner was being held. The courtyard was dark and deserted; or so I thought, until I heard hushed voices. They came from the shadows beneath the opposite colonnade.
I held my breath and listened, but the voices were too low for me to make sense of them. They might have been arguing, and one of them was almost certainly a man’s voice; beyond t
hat I could only speculate. At last I cleared my throat and spoke.
“Zeno?”
There was a long pause. Then I heard the voice of Zeno: “Who is it?”
I stepped from the shadows of the colonnade and into the faint starlight of the open courtyard. “My name is Gordianus,” I said.
A longer pause. Then: “Do I know you?”
“No. I’m a Roman. A guest of your fatherin-law.” This was not entirely untrue.
“What do you want?” He emerged from beneath the opposite colonnade and took a few steps toward me. His cape obscured his silhouette, but I thought I saw his right hand move to his waist, as if to reach for a dagger in a scabbard. He took another step toward me.
For a brief moment I was struck by the irony, should my lifeless body be found in this place. How many times had I been called upon to make sense of a corpse discovered in a courtyard, to ferret for clues to the killer’s identity, to make sense of the crime? What a jest of the gods if Gordianus the Finder should meet his end as just such a victim as those he had spent his life puzzling over! A slave would find my body, an alarm would be raised, and the First Timouchos’s dinner party disrupted. The stab wounds would be noted and the identity of the victim a mystery until someone—Domitius, Milo, Davus, Apollonides himself?—identified me. But from that point it seemed unlikely that anyone would spare much time or effort trying to solve my murder, except perhaps poor Davus.
Unless….
For the briefest of instants, perhaps no longer than the blink of an eye, I entertained a most peculiar fantasy: Meto was still alive and in Massilia, and this was his story, not mine. I was the one destined to die, not he; and he was the one destined to grieve for me and search for my killer. I was merely the victim in someone else’s story, mistakenly thinking myself to be the protagonist! This fantasy was so powerful that I was wrenched out of the moment, abruptly disengaged from reality, cast into the world where sleepwalkers dwell. It was a foreshadowing of death, such as all men must occasionally feel, especially as they grow older. What is it to be a lemur, after all, but to be written out of the world’s story, to become a name spoken in the past tense, to mutely watch from the shadows while others carry on the tale of the living?
Last Seen in Massilia: A Novel of Ancient Rome Page 17