SPQR IX: The Princess and the Pirates Page 7

  “Alpheus’s question was a good one,” I said. “Just how do you propose we find them? It’s for just such advice that I will be hiring you.”

  He lifted his cup. “I think that should wait until after I’ve taken your oath and accepted your silver denarius.”

  I dipped into my purse and took out a denarius. “Here,” I said, tossing it to him. “This is your provisional enlistment, as witnessed by Princess Cleopatra, who is now one of my officers. You are now under Roman protection. When we leave here, come with us. I’ll find you a bunk in the house of Silvanus for the night. You’ve been seen talking with us, and your life is no longer worth that denarius in this port.”

  He grinned, showing not a single empty space among his white teeth. I considered it a good sign that a veteran brawler of his years still had all his teeth. Then his grin faded. “I’d feel better if you gave me the oath right now.” He had a true sailor’s reverence for the supernatural powers.

  “We need an altar for that,” I said. “You can take the oath tomorrow at the naval base.”

  “We pass the Temple of Poseidon on the way back to the house of Silvanus,” Alpheus suggested. “Why not give him the oath there?”

  “Good idea,” I said. I picked up our pitcher and peered into its faintly damp bottom. “Time for more.” I signaled for the barmaid, and she came scurrying over.

  “Who knows?” said Alpheus. “We might have a whole crew of men like Ariston recruited before it is time to leave.”

  “I have a feeling there are very few men around here like Ariston,” Cleopatra said, eyeing the man coolly.

  He grinned again, “You have that right, Princess.”

  The wine arrived quickly, and we drank to our new recruit. Cleopatra asked for another song from Alpheus, but he protested that he was sung out for the moment and reeled off in search of the jakes. So, willful as a child, she demanded pirate stories from Ariston. He complied happily, and she gave him her rapt attention.

  Alpheus slipped back onto the bench beside me and whispered, “Look over there.” He nodded toward the corner where Flavia lounged, her gown fallen to her waist and no fewer than six sailors surrounding her. Her face was flushed crimson, and she laughed loudly as they took liberties with her. “Do you think she’ll take them on each in turn or all at once?”

  I pondered the logistics. “Common wisdom holds that a woman can properly entertain no more than three men at once, since the gods have bestowed upon her only that many orifices suited to the task. If she is dextrous with her hands in spite of such distractions, she may deal with two more. I’ve known certain wonderfully trained courtesans who can manage five to the satisfaction of all involved. But six? I would think that unlikely.”

  “I would like to watch just to find out,” he said. “Do you think she would object if I were to go over there and suggest it?”

  I considered this. The evening had reached the stage where this seemed like a reasonable proposition. “Best not,” I said. “I may need to borrow money from her husband before my business here is over. The Senate has granted me its usual, niggardly budget for this project, and I may well exceed it soon.”

  “Pity,” he said wistfully. “It would be a spectacle worthy of a poem in the style of Duris.” He referred not to the Samian historian, but to the Ionian poet of the same name, whose works were not only forbidden in Rome but were regularly seized and burned even in Greek cities, and you can’t get much more salacious than that. I had paid dearly in hard coin for my own collection of his works.

  “What are you two talking about?” Cleopatra demanded.

  “There are some aspects of real life,” Alpheus said, “that should wait upon greater maturity and sophistication, Princess.”

  Before long it was clear that we would get no more recruits that night. The place began to empty, and soon I saw that even Flavia of the heroic appetites had retired somewhere with her six salty swains. Eventually, I stood.

  “Time to go,” I said. “We must be at the ships early. I want to take them out on patrol, even if we’ve had no word of a pirate strike.”

  “Are you sure you can walk?” Cleopatra asked.

  “Princess,” I replied, “a Roman officer can walk where other men can only crawl.”

  “That makes no sense whatever,” she observed.

  “He is a Roman,” Alpheus told her. “He was trained in rhetoric, not logic.”

  I paid our score and bought a small jug of the best-quality wine to be had at the tavern. At the door Hermes and Apollodorus took small, oil-soaked torches from the jar provided by the management.

  “Apollodorus,” I said, “you walk ahead of us. Hermes, come along behind.”

  “My place is at my lady’s back,” the Sicilian boy said adamantly. “You can’t talk to the senator like that!” Hermes cried. “Get up front or I’ll ram that torch up—”

  “I shall lead the way,” Alpheus proclaimed grandly, seizing a torch and lighting it at the door sconce, “as Orpheus led Eurydice from the realm of Tartarus.”

  “With happier outcome, I hope,” Cleopatra said, giggling girlishly. “Thanks,” I whispered to the poet.

  He winked. “How are we to teach our slaves manners if not by modest acts of diplomacy?”

  We set off with the poet in front and the two slaves stalking along behind, stiff-legged as a pair of Molossian fighting hounds sniffing each other’s backsides. I could see that I was going to have to do something about those two before much longer.

  “His heart full of joy,” Alpheus proclaimed as he stepped forth, “the Thracian made his way from the gloomy palace of terrible Hades, and close behind followed his beloved Eurydice, at whom he durst not gaze until both should stand beneath the blessed light of Apollo.

  “Past the Three Judges their steps took them, and by the lovely song of Orpheus the eyes of Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus were dazzled and their souls were filled with bliss. Monstrous Cerberus laid his three heads upon his paws and allowed them to pass unharmed, his savage heart soothed by the divine music.

  “Through the sad Asphodel Fields did Orpheus lead his darling wife, victim of the serpent’s sting, and the jealous shades gathered round but hindered them not, for in the rapture of the Thracian’s song their thirst for blood was slaked, and they remembered the joys of their mortal lives, and knew peace.”

  We turned a corner and climbed the main street, the voice of Alpheus echoing from the whitewashed fronts of the buildings to either side.

  “At the shore of the Styx, that black river which is a terrible oath, the fingers of Orpheus drew from his lyre so sweet a tune that the turbulent waters calmed and became as polished bronze, and ancient, cankered Charon, drawn by the heavenly music, brought his ferryboat to shore, though never before had he fetched his passengers from the Tartarus shore, but only those unhappy shades destined to go there, never to return.

  “From the prow of Charon’s barge stepped Orpheus onto land, his beloved Eurydice but a pace behind, amid the batlike twittering of the hopeless shades gone thither with no coin beneath the tongue to pay the ferryman.

  “Up the long, long cavern they climbed, Eurydice fallen behind in the gloom, unable to see her husband, guided by his wonderful music, sweet to her ears as light. In time before them, tiny as a star in the distance, lay the mouth of the cave, at Aornum in Thesprotis.

  “At last bold Orpheus, he who dared enter the dread land of Hades, went forth into the holy light of Apollo, and with a final note ended his incomparable song, and turning to let his eyes drink in the sight of his beloved wife, saw to his horror that she still stood the distance of but a single pace within the mouth of the awful cave. Alas! But a moment’s vision had he of his beloved, and with a despairing cry she faded from his view, to return to the home of the pitiless Lord of the Underworld, there to dwell forever.”

  Alpheus ended his song neatly just as we arrived before the Temple of Poseidon. We applauded him heartily, even Ariston, who didn’t impress me as much of an
aesthete. As lyric poems go it wasn’t all that distinguished, a minor variation on a well-worn theme. Plus, as I remembered the sequence of steps to the Underworld, Cerberus stood on guard between the Styx and the Asphodel Fields, not between the fields and the home of Hades.

  But, considering that it was composed extempore, in a fog of wine fumes, and timed perfectly to end at our destination, Alpheus had earned his applause.

  “Now, Ariston, come with me. Princess, I take it that you have been trained in hieratical duties?”

  “I am a priestess of Isis, an initiate in the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Cult of Dionysus, and—”

  “We don’t need anything that specialized. I just need you to act as witness and pour the sacrifice at the proper moment.”

  So we climbed the steps to the splendid altar that stood before the temple. With Cleopatra holding the wine jar, I borrowed Hermes’s sword and, grasping it by the sheath, held it out toward Ariston, who placed his horny palm on its hilt. Then I administered the oath, which is a sacred thing and not to be written down. At the required moment, Cleopatra poured the wine onto the altar and we watched as it ran down the blood channel to the drain that would carry it to the earth below.

  “That’s that, then,” I said, tossing the weapon back to Hermes. “Welcome to the service of Rome. Stay in the navy for twenty years, and you’ll be rewarded with citizenship.”

  Ariston laughed loudly. “So that I can spend a few years of doddering old age privileged to vote some thief into office?”

  “You could take up residence in some thriving little municipality, get elected to office, and line your own purse. Plenty of clever veterans have done that.”

  “The wonders of living in a republic,” Cleopatra said bemusedly. We began to stroll across the plaza toward the governor’s mansion when I stopped in my tracks at an all too familiar sound: a triple slither of blades leaving sheaths. Hermes, Apollodorus, and Ariston had drawn in the same instant. I had heard nothing to alarm me, but that didn’t slow me down. My hands dived into my tunic and emerged with my dagger in my right fist and the spiked, bronze bar of my caestus across the knuckles of my left. I scandalized my family by brawling with such low-bred weapons, but they had saved my life in too many dark streets for me to entrust it to any others.

  “How many?” I asked.

  “We’ll know soon,” Hermes said.

  “Hold this,” Apollodorus said, handing his torch to Cleopatra. She took it, eyes gone wide as he took his position just behind her to the right, where he could keep her in view and she would not interfere with his sword arm. He would ignore the rest of us, but nobody would touch Cleopatra while he was alive. Hermes stood back-to-back with me, and Ariston stood half crouched a few feet away, his eyes darting in all directions. Alpheus stood rigid, his torch held aloft, eyes bugged out in astonished terror.

  All this was the work of an instant, and in the next instant they attacked.

  With a hideous screech, they closed on us in a half circle. I had no time to make a count, but I knew they outnumbered us grievously. Well, I’d been in that situation before. The answer was to carve down their numbers as quickly as possible. I was surrounded by glittering metal and then the first of them was on me in a wash of wine-and-garlic breath. He cut high, going for my throat, and I ducked low, stepping in to drive my caestus into the bundle of nerves in his armpit. He squawked at the unexpected pain, and I drove my dagger in somewhere in the vicinity of his midriff.

  The man dropped away from me just in time for me to see one dart past Cleopatra. Apollodorus thrust his sword out almost lazily, and the man stopped with a look of wonder as a great fountain of blood erupted from his throat. The really great swordsmen always seem to move slowly. Then I had no more time to appreciate his technique as another was on me. Meantime I could hear a series of grunts behind me and hoped that. Hermes was coping well, as my back would feel terribly bare otherwise.

  My new admirer wore a short coat of Gallic mail and had a curved sword in one hand and a small fist shield in the other. He had come ready for war, and here I was, half naked and slow with all the wine I had put away. The sword flicked toward my eyes, and I batted it aside with the caestus, but it was a ruse. His real blow came from the little shield. Its iron edge came down on my right forearm just behind the wrist, and I heard my dagger hit the pavement an instant before the shield came in a second time, driving into my ribs and sending the wind from my lungs in a great blast.

  Lights flashed before my eyes as I fell. My back hit the pavement and I saw, upside-down, Hermes fully occupied with a man who swung an iron-tipped staff in both hands. No help to be had from that direction. I tried to draw my legs in for a desperate kick, but I knew it was too late: the curved sword was already drawn back for the deathblow. All I could think was: It is good to die immediately after sacrificing. Neptune will intervene for me with the Judges. My father would have commended such a pious last thought, though he would have cursed me for a fool for dying in such a fashion.

  Then a broad shape came between me and my would-be murderer. Ariston, crouched low, thrust a massive shoulder into the fellow’s midsection, bending him almost double. With a heave of powerful thighs, the ex-pirate sent him almost straight up, turning over end-for-end. Incredibly, Ariston spun and brought his broad-bladed knife down in a shearing blow, and the man landed on his back in a clashing of mail, half-beheaded.

  Then there was silence until I heard a low whistle. “Will you teach me that move?” Hermes, naturally.

  “I am glad,” I wheezed, “that you are so solicitous of your half-slain master.”

  The boy helped me to my feet. “I’ve seen you half killed a dozen times. You don’t get to see a move like that every day.”

  “Many thanks, Ariston,” I said. “I can see already that I did the right thing recruiting you.”

  “What is going on here!” shouted someone. Then I saw Silvanus coming across the plaza with five or six slaves holding torches and staves. With him was Gabinius, accompanied by a grizzled man who had the look of a retired centurion. Both old soldiers held heavy, legionary swords in scarred fists.

  “Just a small ambush,” I said, “nothing to concern yourself about.” My studied nonchalance was spoiled by the searing pain in my side. If I’d been fully sober it never would have happened.

  “Princess!” Silvanus cried, “Are you well?”

  “Perfectly unharmed,” she said, her voice breathless and excited. “I don’t believe this attack was meant for me.” Beside her, Apollodorus cleaned his blade on the tunic of the man he’d killed. I felt a hand clap my shoulder and turned to see the elated face of Alpheus.

  “That was splendid! I shall compose a poem on this fight!” I wiped a hand down a half-numb face. “Poets sing of battle,” I said, “not sordid little brawls like this.”

  “What do you think went on before the walls of Troy? Just a brawl.” He smiled and shrugged happily, verses already running through his head no doubt.

  Gabinius examined the carnage. “Looks like the Senate steps back to the old days.” Five bodies lay there. I spotted the one Apollodorus had eliminated so elegantly, the one I had killed, and the one Ariston had eliminated. The staff man lay gurgling, bloody froth bubbling from a gaping chest wound. An unarmored man with a short sword had his hands full taking on a good man with a staff. Hermes had learned well.

  “Who got this one?” I asked, pointing to an eviscerated man who lay nearby.

  “He’s mine,” Ariston said. “And I sent another running with an arm cut half through. He should be dead by morning.”

  “Then you get a high score for tonight’s work,” I commended him. “How many were there altogether?”

  “I counted eight,” Alpheus said, “There were two who hung back and ran when they saw their companions bested.”

  “Did you see anyone just standing back and watching not taking any part?”

  “No, but I wasn’t looking back there in among the alleyways. I confess I was over
come with fear. I should have paid more attention.”

  “You did all right. I—”

  “Metellus,” Silvanus bit out, “how dare you risk the life of the princess like this? If the Senate heard—”

  “Not here in front of foreigners!” Gabinius snapped. “Let’s go inside and talk.” This was eminently sensible advice.

  A few louts from the night watch arrived, and Silvanus pointed to the staff man, who still breathed. “Take him to the lockup and put the hot irons to him. I want to know the name of whoever put these men up to this deed. Promise him a quick death if he talks.”

  “The one I cut must be leaving a trail like a gutted boar,” Ariston said. Gabinius turned to the grizzled man. “Take two of these men and follow the blood. Bring me back a live man or a dead one, but live by preference. You know how to make them talk.” The old centurion nodded shortly, then pointed a blunt finger at two of the watch, “You and you. Come.” Off they went like hounds on a scent.

  We walked back toward the mansion, Silvanus bubbling apologies the whole way. “Princess, I cannot tell you how sorry I am that this has happened. Please assure your father—”

  “Nonsense. All turned out well, and it was most exhilarating. Please don’t concern yourself on my account. They were after the senator.”

  “You might’ve been the target,” Gabinius said, bluntly. “I don’t see how—”

  “You’re worth a good bit of change now, with your older sisters dead and you set to marry your brother after the Egyptian custom. Auletes would pay handsomely to have you back.”

  “Exactly,” said Silvanus, as if he had been thinking the same thing. “Naturally these rogues would eliminate your protection, first the senator and his guard and this ugly fellow I don’t know, then Apollodorus, then just bag you and carry you off to their ship.”

  “Oh,” she said, her face suddenly grave.

  “Hermes,” I said, “Take Ariston back to our quarters and find him a place to bunk down.”