SPQR IX: The Princess and the Pirates

by John Maddox Roberts

  Silvanus had a litter big enough for the three of us, and I accepted his invitation to share it, leaving Hermes to make his way to our lodgings on foot. When the slaves picked up the conveyance and began their smooth pace, I learned what was on the minds of the two most powerful men on Cyprus.

  “Commodore,” Silvanus began, “you are the one with the commission from the Senate, and it is not my place to advise you, but I hope you will not be offended if I offer you some anyway.”

  “I am always happy to hear the opinions of men of distinction and experience.”

  “Then let me say that I believe it to be a grave mistake to allow Princess Cleopatra to join your flotilla. She is a charming girl and I have enjoyed having her as my guest, but she is no friend of Rome. She hides it well, but she bitterly resents our annexation of Cyprus and the death of her uncle.”

  “My flotilla is very small,” I said, “and now I find that naval stores of all descriptions are in short supply or entirely absent, except for paint. Her ship is a fine one, better than any of mine, and its men, sailors and marines, are of the best quality. I need that ship.”

  “Then take it,” Gabinius said, “but leave her ashore.”

  “It would be an intolerable insult to Ptolemy to commandeer his vessel and treat his daughter in such a fashion.”

  “Ptolemy is a buffoon and should be grateful for whatever bones get tossed his way from the Roman table,” Gabinius said.

  “Nonetheless, I want that ship, and I am inclined to humor Cleopatra.” I was not sure why I was being so stubborn since the doubts they expressed echoed my own, but I had just been justifying myself to my own slave and exasperation was setting in. Also, I was not certain why they thought it to be a matter of concern to them, and such uncertainties quickly become suspicions in my mind.

  “Let it be on your head,” Silvanus said. “But, mark me, she will desert you in action or bring about some other mischief.”

  I found the lady herself waiting in my quarters when we got back to the mansion of Silvanus. She was dressed in a nondescript gown and behind her, as always, stood Apollodorus. With her was the merry-faced young poet, Alpheus.

  “They’ve just arrived,” Hermes said. He had reached the house ahead of us. “The princess says you have a previous engagement.”

  “Engagement?”

  “Don’t you remember?” Cleopatra said. “We are going out to the Andromeda to hire ex-pirates!” She smiled like a delighted child.

  “I let it slip my mind. Anyway, I probably have more than we need. You should see the pack of villains I hired today.”

  “I’ll bet you hired none who admitted to his old trade,” Alpheus said. “And now they’ve taken your oath, they’ll never own up to it.”

  “Come on,” Cleopatra insisted, “join us. It will be far more fun than another drunken banquet.”

  “I like drunken banquets,” I told her. “But since I agreed already, I’ll go along.” Actually, I didn’t remember setting a specific date for this venture, but lapses of memory were nothing new to me.

  “Good!” she cried, all but clapping her hands with glee. She stood and Apollodorus wrapped her in a voluminous cloak and drew its cowl over her head. Doubtless this suited her sense of drama, but it was not necessary. In plain dress and without her extravagant jewelry, she looked like any other lively Greek girl; attractive but not strikingly so, and with no visible clues as to her royal ancestry. I have noticed on many occasions that royalty often fancy that some look sets them apart from other mortals, as if their flesh shed golden rays, but I have never found this to be so.

  I sent word to my host that urgent business called for my presence elsewhere and went out into the deepening dark with a pair of slaves, a poet, and the future queen of Egypt in search of the lowest sailor’s dive in town.

  The Andromeda was located near the docks, in a narrow street of low, single-story buildings, most of them devoted, in one way or another, to the maritime trade: warehouses, chandler’s shops, the houses of ship-wrights and sailmakers, and, naturally, sailors’ taverns. We knew we had the right place by its sign: the ever-popular image of a beautiful naked woman chained to a rock.

  Inside it was typical of all such places all over the world. The ceiling was low, the atmosphere was smoky from the many lamps, and the predominant smell was that of spilled wine. Along one wall ran a long counter that held amphorae of wine, their mouths gaping invitingly. Several long tables ran the length of the room, and in the corners were a few smaller tables. There were probably fifty or sixty men in the room, most of them recognizable as sailors by their caps and their pitch-stained tunics, along with a few women of questionable station in life.

  “May I find you a table, sir?” The barmaid was a good-looking young woman with the well-developed arms and upper body of one who hoisted heavy jars and pitchers all day long.

  “You may,” I said. “One of those corner tables, if you please.”

  As we wended our way toward the rear of the room, curious eyes followed our progress. Although on military duty, I wore a nondescript tunic and plain sandals. Nonetheless, nobody would take me for anything other than a Roman. Besides my classically Roman face, nobody else in the world stands or walks like a Roman. It is something drilled into us by the legions and the rhetoric schools, which emphasize stance and movement as much as voice, and there is no disguising it. Even Hermes, though born a slave of questionable ancestry, shared this bodily attitude, bestowed by his upbringing in Caecilian households.

  Cleopatra, Alpheus, and I took our seats at a small, round table, while Hermes and Apollodorus stood behind us, each leaning against the wall, arms folded, one foot propped against the wall behind him, eyes scanning the room, studiedly ignoring the other.

  “I’ve never been inside such a place!” Cleopatra said, her eyes sparkling beneath the cowl.

  “I can well believe it,” I said. “Ptolemaic princesses are gently if extravagantly reared. You may take it from me though that your father has been in many such.” Gossip had it that old Ptolemy Auletes had made his living, when young, playing the flute in places far more disreputable than this one. Now that he was a king and a god, he sometimes missed the old days.

  “Here,” said Alpheus, “you have exposure to a different world. Heretofore your education has been that given by scholars and philosophers and courtiers training you for your future role as queen and mother of the next king. You know of the real world of the common people only from reading. It is not a bad thing for one who will one day rule to see at firsthand how most of the world lives.”

  This had a distinctly odd sound to me, but then the Greeks are different.

  The barmaid arrived at the table with a large bowl divided down its middle into two halves. One held olives, the other parched peas and nuts: thirst-inducing snacks esteemed by tavern keepers the world over.

  “Bring us a pitcher of Falernian,” I said. “Don’t bother with water.” “No Falernian,” she reported. “We have Coan, Corinthian, Lesbian, Cretan, and we just got in some fine Judean. Have you ever tried Judean? It’s wonderful.” Having no reason to doubt her word, I ordered the Judean.

  With my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I took a longer look at our surroundings. The walls were plastered white and covered with paintings and graffiti. The paintings were second-rate, mostly the usual sea-gods, tritons, nereids, and so forth. One wall had a depiction of the story of Perseus and Andromeda. The graffiti were no more than ordinarily scabrous, mostly of the cursing or blessing sort. Some, though, were in languages I could not read. I took some to be Persian, others Syrian. One of them, I swear it, was in Egyptian hieroglyphics.

  “What do we do now?” Cleopatra asked.

  “This is a tavern,” I said. “We drink.”

  She frowned. “We can do that anyplace.”

  “We can’t rush things. I can’t very well stand up and announce my intentions. It wouldn’t look right. We’ll have to wait and be approached.”

  “How
will anyone know who you are?”

  “They’ll know,” I assured her. “They knew the moment I walked in here.”

  The wine arrived and the Judean proved to be as good as the girl had promised and of a pale rose color I had never seen before. Since Cyprus lay close to Judea, it could travel there without suffering the usual deleterious effects of a long sea voyage.

  Alpheus regaled us with stories of the gods and how they had disported themselves on Cyprus and in its surrounding waters. He was a most ingratiating companion, and it was a good thing for him, since it was how he made his living. As the evening rolled pleasantly by, I saw a few of my own men, but they faded back out when they caught sight of me. No man feels comfortable carousing under the eye of his commander.

  “Decius,” Cleopatra whispered, touching my arm, “over there, that corner table opposite ours—doesn’t that woman look familiar?”

  I squinted in that direction. At a small table a woman sat between two burly, bearded men. From both sides they leaned close and spoke into her ears. I suspected they were not discussing the price of copper in the Paphos market. The woman had let her cloak fall back far enough to reveal a good-quality gown skimpy enough to reveal the greater part of her prodigious breasts. Nobody’s hands were above the table, but they seemed to be busily employed. The woman’s flushed, laughing face looked decidedly familiar.

  “Isn’t that Flavia,” Cleopatra asked, “the banker’s wife?” I looked again. Her dark hair hung loose to her shoulders, meaning she had been wearing a blonde wig at the banquet two nights earlier. It was definitely Flavia.

  “The lady seems to enjoy slumming,” I said. “She wouldn’t be the first rich woman I’ve known to supplement a fat, old husband’s inadequacies with virile if lowborn company.” I could have named a score of noble Roman ladies who could have given this one lessons in scandalous deportment, but it has never been my habit to gossip.

  “Pretend we haven’t seen her,” Alpheus advised, relishing the whole business. “Otherwise she might be embarrassed next time we see her with her husband—was his name Nobilior?—at the house of Silvanus.”

  Moments later, while the princess and the poet were deep in conversation, I happened to glance toward the corner table and saw Flavia staring straight into my eyes. She wore a loose, lazy, slightly drunken smile as she shrugged a shoulder and let her gown fall, revealing one amazingly bulbous breast. It was quickly captured by one of her companions, who began to maul it mercilessly with a broad, calloused hand while she smiled at me triumphantly and her lips formed a word I could not understand. No, we were not likely to embarrass this woman.

  “Are you the Roman sent out here to hunt pirates?”

  My attention was distracted from the woman to a man who stood by our table, and he was a riveting specimen. Deeply tanned like all sailors, his powerful body was covered with old scars, and they were from battle not the public torturer. His tunic was even scantier than that worn by Hermes and exposed a great deal of this scarred flesh. Tucked into his rope cincture was a large, curved dagger. Most astonishingly for these waters, the man’s short-cropped hair was pure blond, almost like a German’s. His eyes burned a brilliant blue above his blocky cheekbones. His feet were bare.

  “From the look of it, I’ve found one. Who are you?”

  “Ariston,” he said, pulling up a stool and sitting without waiting for an invitation.

  “That’s a Greek name, and you are no Greek,” I said.

  “You couldn’t pronounce the one I was born with. It doesn’t matter. I’ve been using this one for thirty years or more, and I’m used to it.”

  “Where are you from? I’ve never seen anyone quite like you, and I’ve traveled more widely than most.”

  “I was born on the steppe beyond Thrace, to the north and east. When I was a boy my tribe was wiped out by another, and the children were marched to the Euxine Sea and sold to slavers there. I was bought by a shipmaster and have lived on the sea ever since.”

  I gestured for the serving girl. “Bring us another cup.” She returned with the requested vessel, and I filled it. Ariston took it, poured a small libation, and drank.

  “You must be a Roman all right,” he said, wiping his lips with the back of a scarred hand. “You can afford the best.”

  “And I can afford to pay well for the services I require. I presume you are interested in offering such?”

  “If we can come to an agreement.” He glanced at Cleopatra, raised almost invisible eyebrows. “You’re that Egyptian princess, aren’t you? The one who’s been playing admiral out in the harbor.”

  “You don’t seem greatly awed,” she noted, flushing slightly. “I’ve had princesses bent over the rail of a captured ship with their wrists tied to their ankles. They’re much like other women, and they don’t bring as much ransom as you’d expect. Kings produce lots of them and have plenty to spare.”

  Apollodorus began to uncoil from the wall, and Ariston glanced up at him. “Easy, boy. I’m no threat to your lady; and if she can’t take the conversation in a place like this, she can stop her ears with wax like Odysseus or go seek company of her own kind.”

  “It’s all right, Apollodorus,” Cleopatra said. Slowly he relaxed, but his dark eyes burned. Hermes smirked faintly at his discomfiture. I glared at Hermes, and his face went aloof again.

  “I take it,” I said, “that you have sailed with these pirates I am looking for?”

  “If I hadn’t I wouldn’t be of much use to you, would I? Yes, I sailed with them for a while. I won’t give you the names of any towns we raided or ships we took because I don’t feel like being crucified just yet.”

  “You’ll be safe once you take my oath of service,” I told him, “but I won’t feel inclined to take you on without more than you’ve just told me.”

  “That is fair. To begin, fifteen years ago I was a sailor aboard the Scylla in the fleet of Admiral Lichas, based in Cilicia. When Pompey swept down upon us like a storm, I surrendered with the rest. We were taken inland to be settled in a new town in Illyria, but I was never meant to be a farmer so I made my way back to the sea and signed on to the first ship that passed.

  “I’ve been plying the sea ever since, all over the Euxine, the Great Sea, and even beyond, all the way to Britannia. But it’s a tame life once you’ve known pirating.”

  “I can imagine,” I said. “Most soldiers I know complain about peacetime—no towns to burn and sack, no women to rape, no men to torture and kill to get at their belongings, no parades, dragging the captives behind you while the citizens sing of your glory.”

  He nodded. “It is tedious. Imagine how your soldiers would feel about fifteen straight years of peace.”

  “They would find it intolerable,” I agreed. “So when the opportunity arose to go back to piracy, you didn’t hesitate?”

  “Not for an instant. I was in Piraeus when I heard that some men were setting back up in the old business. I knew they would be needing experienced men, so I took ship for Cyprus and made contact with them.”

  “Cyprus?” I said. “You mean they’re based here?”

  “This was six months ago. They had a base on the other side of the island then. The base changed three times just during the time I was with them: a place on the Lydian mainland called Pyrios, a little island near Rhodes, then a cove on Crete that the locals call the Beach of Crabs.”

  “Who is their leader?”

  “Last I heard, a man named Spurius.”

  “That’s impossible. Spurius is a Roman name.”

  “Well, it ought to be, since he’s a Roman. I’ve always heard that Romans will steal anything, anywhere, so why not at sea?”

  I had no good answer for that. As I have said, we are not a nautical people, but there was no reason why some Roman should not set himself up as a pirate chief.

  “Ariston,” Cleopatra said, “what made you leave these pirates? It sounds as if the life suits you well.” She displayed not the slightest distaste for this seafarin
g murderer, only a lively interest. If she wanted to see real life, she was getting it by the bucketful in this place.

  “The old life suited me well, but not this. You see, in the old days we were the kings of the sea. The pirate fleets ruled the waters from the Euxine to the Pillars of Herakles and beyond. We rowed right up to Roman ports and bared our buttocks at them. Kings of the land payed us tribute just to make us go away. We blockaded whole cities and made them ransom themselves. We gilded entire ships and hoisted sails dyed with Tyrian purple. That was living the way a pirate should!” He looked morose.

  “This new lot are not worthy of the old fleets. With a few, miserable Liburnians they skulk about, raid small villages, and take merchantmen—as long as there’s not another sail in sight. It’s too paltry for me. In the fleet of Lichas I rose to command a trireme! We went ship-to-ship with the fleets of Bythinia and Rhodes and sent them scurrying back home.”

  “Until Rome came and swept the sea clean of you,” I said. “Rome ruins everything for everybody,” he said, then grinned crookedly. “Well, that’s how the wheel of Fortuna turns. Now Rome is at the helm, and I’d rather serve a first-rate power than despoil goatherds and take defenseless ships hauling wool. My pride won’t take it.”

  “How do you propose we find these pirates?” Alpheus asked. Ariston cocked his head toward the young man. “Who’s he?” “I am a poet.”

  “He’s not sailing with us, is he?”

  “No,” I answered, “but she is.”

  He rolled his eyes. “This is going to be an interesting voyage.” Cleopatra smiled sweetly. “Don’t expect me to bend over the rail for you, tied or untied.” A bit of the murderous Ptolemy showed through her polish.