Wrath of the Furies (12 page)

Gaius Cassius pursed his lips shrewdly. “What a lovely idea. I'll keep that in mind, when we finally defeat the son of a whore. I should quite like to see Mithridates paraded through the streets of Rome with a chain around his neck and both hands cut off.” He narrowed his eyes and smiled grimly.

“About this bounty,” I said. “If I may ask, what makes the king desire your capture so much?”

“When the war broke out, our father remained loyal to Rome,” said Pythion. “He donated a great deal of grain to feed the Roman troops, and offered other assistance.”

“No man was ever a better friend to Rome than Chaeremon,” declared Gaius Cassius.

“But when Mithridates defeated the Romans, we had to flee from Nysa,” said Pythion. “We headed for Ephesus. We had no idea how much the Romans are hated there. The Ephesians were overjoyed at the prospect of being ‘freed from the Roman yoke,' as they put it. It was only a matter of time before Mithridates would arrive, and the Ephesians would open their gates to him. Our father managed to book passage for my brother and me on a ship bound for Rhodes.”

“And Chaeremon?” I asked.

“Father stayed behind. We've had no word from him since,” said Pythion.

I nodded, knowing how it felt to be separated from a father and to have no news of him.

“So the bounty is actually a hopeful sign,” said his brother. “If Mithridates is offering a reward for Father's capture, that means he's still alive. And the fact that Mithridates is offering a bounty for us means he doesn't know that we've escaped to Rhodes.”

“Unless he means to take Rhodes next,” said Samson. The others looked at him sharply. “If your father is still in Ephesus, he's very likely taken sanctuary in the Temple of Artemis. If that's the case, Mithridates knows exactly where Chaeremon is, and the bounty is meant to encourage the most rabid of the Rome-haters in Ephesus to storm the sanctuary and capture everyone inside, never mind the laws of gods and men.”

Pythion and Pythodorus both turned pale. The younger brother covered his face.

More food was brought, a fish course garnished with bitter radishes and salted olives. No one touched it except Samson. I had noticed that he always displayed a hearty appetite on board the
Phoenix
. He took his time, relishing each bite as the rest of us watched.

“This treacherous tutor, this Zoticus of Zeugma,” he finally said, wiping the corners of his mouth. He saw the look on my face. “Oh, yes, Posidonius has already told me everything.”
Everything but Antipater's true name,
I thought. “We know he didn't seduce
you
into betraying Rome, Posidonius, but what about your students? They come here every day, and they include all sorts. Zoticus must have had contact with them. How are we to know that the old fellow didn't lure some budding young philosopher into playing spy for Mithridates, right under your own roof?”

Pythion threw up his hands. “How are we to trust anyone, anywhere?”

“My point exactly,” said Samson.

Posidonius nodded. “The question you raise has already occurred to me. That's why we six are the only guests at this dinner. Every man in this room can be trusted. We all come from different places, but we all have the same goal: to stop Mithridates.”

“Is that
your
goal, Gordianus?” asked Samson.

“I want to stop Mithridates from harming Zoticus, yes.”

“But is that enough? The rest of us in this room want to see Mithridates destroyed. From what Posidonius told me, you merely want to save the life of a single man, and an enemy at that—a worthless scoundrel whom the rest of us would like to see paraded in chains along with Mithridates through the streets of Rome someday.”

Posidonius raised his hand. “Enough of that, Samson! Gordianus will stand with us. Of that I'm sure.”

“But is Gordianus sure? I should like to hear him say it aloud.”

“So should I,” said Gaius Cassius, staring at me.

“And so should we,” said the two brothers, not quite in unison, so that one sounded like the echo of the other.

I looked from face to face. I had come to the house of Posidonius merely seeking shelter for the night, and perhaps a bit of conversation with someone who knew Antipater. What had I gotten myself into?

“What exactly do you want from me?” I asked.

“We've already told you!” snapped Gaius Cassius. “While in Ephesus, or anywhere else under the control of Mithridates, you will act as eyes and ears for Rome. No action is required of you; you need only to watch and to listen, and pass on what you've observed to Samson here, who is embarking on his own mission, but who is a friend of Rome. Any information of value will find its way back here to me.”

It would never turn out to be that simple, I thought.

He scowled at my hesitation. “Well? What do you say?”

“Why should I—”

“Because you are a Roman!” Gaius Cassius rose to his feet and gathered the folds of his toga. “Because you are the son of your father! If the Finder were here, what would he say to you?”

Without realizing it, Gaius Cassius had touched on one of the reasons for my uncertainty. My father had helped Antipater to fake his own death in Rome and to set out on his journey under a new name. Had my father known of Antipater's intentions, and of his loyalty to Mithridates? Had he shared that loyalty? The idea was shocking, but anything seemed possible. By helping Rome, would I be doing what he would wish me to do, or would I be betraying my father?

“How I wish my father were here,” I said aloud.

“Since he's not, I will speak for him,” said Gaius Cassius. “As he is a Roman, and so am I, I am the nearest thing you have to a father in this place, so far from Rome. Are you not a Roman, Gordianus? Are you not a son of Rome?”

I stared at the governor. No man could be more different from my father. Gaius Cassius struck me as a gruff, scowling bully of a man, quite the opposite of my father. And yet …

“I am a Roman,” I said.

“Then you will do what Rome requires of you!” he shouted.

Still I hesitated.

“And if you don't,” said Posidonius, almost in a whisper, “then Samson here will see to it that you're exposed as an imposter and a Roman the moment you set foot in Ephesus. That will be the end of any plan you may have to save Zoticus.”

“And the end of you,” added Samson. “And of that pretty slave girl, as well.”

For a long moment they all looked at me in silence.

“How shall we go about this?” I asked.

 

IX

[From the secret diary of Antipater of Sidon:]

 … having just locked myself in this room after enduring a most disturbing dinner with the king.

As always I was obliged to maintain my identity as nonentity, posing as Zoticus of Zeugma. A poet unable to recite his own verses might as well be mute! Instead, when asked about my life and work, I stutter and stammer and inevitably come off as an old fool who's risen above his station. They must all think: What in Hades is that fellow doing among us? Is he here to play the fool in the king's court!?

Of course, the court has plenty of fools already. The
Shahansha
has a weakness for fawning underlings who happen to possess some paltry talent. A juggler named Sosipater is probably the worst of the lot. “Juggle this!” says the king, pointing at a stool. “Now juggle that!” he says, throwing a cup or a bowl at the poor wretch. “Poor,” I say, but Sosipater owns vineyards and ships and mines and pastures and vast herds of livestock. Not bad for a man who began as a street urchin in a village on the Euxine Sea, and now dines with the King of Kings, even if he must juggle for his supper.

I was forced to sit next to this creature at the banquet, which was in honor of the father of Queen Monime, Philopoemen, marking his investiture as Episcopus of Ephesus. Philopoemen has been running Ephesus for some time, but Mithridates has only now decided the title by which his royal overseer should be addressed, what rank he should have in the court, what sort of regalia he may wear, and so on.

There is a great deal of pomp and ceremony at these banquets, which wear on for hours. In between the boring parts the guests are treated to an endless parade of acrobats, contortionists, singers, dancers, musicians, and actors. These are the people I am forced to sit with, with whom I have nothing in common.

This banquet was held in what surely must be the largest dining chamber in all of Ephesus. Half of the guests reclined on couches along one long wall, while the other half reclined across from us, with the space between open for recitations and other entertainments. Thus I was kept at a distance from anyone with whom I could possibly have enjoyed an intelligent conversation.

Across the way, I could see young Prince Ptolemy, formerly resident on the island of Cos but now, through no choice of his own, a member of the royal retinue. Does the king have designs on Egypt as well as Rome? One hears that all of Egypt is in chaos, and thus vulnerable to invasion, but surely Mithridates is not so mad that he wants to try his hand at ruling that unruly land!

Also across the way—he might as well have been across the sea—I spotted Metrodorus of Scepsis, a man with whom I would dearly love to converse. Everyone here calls him
Misorhomaios,
“Rome-Hater,” as if that were his official title. Metrodorus is famous for inventing a scientific method of memorization and perfect recollection—he does this somehow by assigning one of the 360 degrees contained in the twelve houses of the zodiac to whatever detail needs to be remembered. It is said that 360 random words can be recited to him, and he can recite them back in precisely the same order, or even in reverse order. Such a thing hardly seems possible, yet Metrodorus is famed for it. He is also famed for his eloquent and unrelenting diatribes against the Romans, from which has arisen his title of Rome-Hater. He and the king are said to regard each other almost as father and son, so great is their mutual fondness and their accord on matters of state. I'm lucky to say two words to the man—much less 360 words!—at these interminable royal banquets, where men infinitely more important than Zoticus of Zeugma are all eager to have the ear of the esteemed
Misorhomaios.

Also present were a great many of the Persian wise men called Magi, dressed in exotic robes and colorful turbans. They tend to keep to themselves and to cluster about their leader, a half-blind old man whom they address as the Grand Magus. The Magi are neither philosophers nor priests, at least not in the Greek sense. I think they draw wisdom from the stars. Mithridates thinks very highly of them.

An equal number of the Megabyzoi were present, the priests of Artemis who dress in yellow and wear towering yellow headdresses, the tallest of which is worn by the Great Megabyzus, a tall, slender fellow. From across the room he looks like a yellow stick insect. His predecessor disappeared some years ago—young Gordianus was involved in that affair, during our visit to Ephesus—leaving this fellow to rise to the foremost place among the Megabyzoi. He treads a rather delicate course these days, obliged on the one hand to genuflect before the King of Kings, and on the other to fulfill his sacred duty to offer sanctuary to all who seek it at the Temple of Artemis. The temple and the sacred precinct around it are filled to overflowing with Romans and others fleeing the wrath of Mithridates. They say that Chaeremon of Nysa is in the temple even now, and that Mithridates will not rest until he sees the fellow's head on a stick, with or without the blessing of Artemis. Shall the sanctity of the temple remain inviolate, or shall the priests expel the asylum seekers and consign them to certain death? With such a choice facing him, it was no wonder the Great Megabyzus was the only guest at the banquet with a gloomier expression than mine.

No, I take that back. For also in attendance was the captured Roman general Quintus Oppius, dressed in a spotless white toga and seated very near the king, as if he were a guest of honor. But next to him sat the giant Bastarna, holding a chain connected to an iron collar around Oppius's neck. Every now and then, either at his own whim or at some secret signal from Mithridates, Bastarna would give the chain a hard yank, causing Oppius to spit out a mouthful of wine or half-chewed food, then sit there, mortified and red-faced, not daring to wipe his chin or dab the drivel from his toga while everyone laughed, with the
Shahansha
laughing loudest of all. Yes, Quintus Oppius wore an expression even gloomier than that of the Great Megabyzus.

And what is one to make of the
other
Roman in attendance, a former consul named Publius Rutilius Rufus? He sat on the other side of the king and in even greater proximity—at the right hand of Mithridates, in fact. When we were both in Rome, somehow I never made the acquaintance of Rutilius, though I knew his reputation as one of the more generous and cultured patrons of the Greek arts. His recent tenure as a provincial legate in Anatolia is recalled by the natives as a kind of golden age—for once, a Roman seemed more interested in cultivating good will and fostering prosperity than in filling his private treasury. Such exemplary behavior made the other Roman officials look bad, so it was no surprise that when Rutilius returned to Rome four years ago he was immediately put on trial, accused of doing the very things he did
not
do—pilfer tax revenues and extort the locals. All too predictably, he was found guilty of these trumped-up charges. Even after selling all his properties, Rutilius lacked sufficient funds to pay the fine imposed on him by the court—that fact in itself was proof that the charges were false, for if Rutilius had committed the crimes of which he was accused, he could easily have paid the fine and had a fortune left over.