Arsinoë was allowed no servants, after all. She and her minister were the only inhabitants of the suite. No wonder the princess was so simply attired, since there was no one to dress her. Her long, shimmering robe was not much more elaborate than that worn by Ganymedes. Having no one to wash and set her hair, she concealed it inside a striped nemes headdress made of stiff cloth, which covered her brow and hung in lappets on either side, framing her plump, round face. Short and voluptuously built like her sister, Arsinoë had put on weight in captivity.
Ganymedes did not look starved either. A potbelly interrupted the otherwise straight line of his robe. Except for the nervous glint in their eyes, they looked like two bored house-guests who had nothing to do but eat all day.
Perhaps because neither was truly a warrior, it had not been thought necessary to reduce them by torture and starvation to a wretched state of near collapse. Or perhaps the lack of ill-treatment was on account of their genders. No princess had ever been paraded to her death in Rome before, and I do not think a eunuch had ever been paraded in a triumph, either. The organizer of the triumph (perhaps Caesar himself) may have considered the two of them sufficiently unmanly to begin with, so that no further degradation was deemed necessary to make them ready to be displayed for the scorn and contempt of the Roman people.
"Ganymedes, who are these men?" Arsinoë drew alongside the much taller eunuch and stared up at me.
Ganymedes delicately wiped a tear from one eye, careful not to smear the kohl. "Friends of Hieronymus," he whispered, his voice choked with emotion. "Dear Hieronymus!"
"My name is Gordianus. My son, who does not speak, is Rupa," I said. "Your Majesty," I added, and even made a slight bow, elbowing Rupa to do the same.
I could see she appreciated the gesture, however perfunctory. "You may be the last mortals on earth to call me that and acknowledge me with a bow," she said wistfully.
"Not true, Your Majesty," said Ganymedes, overcoming his tears. "I shall address you by your title and bow before you until the very end."
"Of course you will, Ganymedes," said the princess. "Not counting you, I mean. What's this about Hieronymus, then?"
"I'm very sorry to tell you that he's dead."
She drew a breath. "How?"
"He was murdered; stabbed to death."
"When?"
"Five nights ago, on the Palatine Hill."
She shook her head. "Is there no end to the wickedness of this world? Poor Hieronymus."
I decided that her plumpness was not unbecoming. She was prettier than her older sister, and the softness of her features made it more difficult to imagine her as a rapacious crocodile. Behind me, I heard Ganymedes weeping.
"I understand that Hieronymus managed to visit you here, Your Majesty, on more than one occasion."
"Yes, he was one of the very few visitors we've received, other than our jailors. He sent a message first, explaining where he came from and who he was, and saying he was curious to meet me. The curiosity was mutual."
"How so, Your Majesty?"
She walked toward the balcony and stepped up to the parapet. I followed at a respectful distance. "Massilia and Alexandria both were founded by Greeks near the mouth of a great river," she said. "Both became centers of culture, learning, and commerce. Alexandria is by far the greater city, of course, but Massilia is older. Hieronymus was chosen to serve as Scapegoat for Massilia, a sacrificial victim to bear away the suffering that might otherwise consume the whole city—suffering inflicted by Caesar. Am I not the Scapegoat of Alexandria? Caesar came. Caesar imposed his will upon us by brute force. The city surrendered. And now there must be a victim to display to the bloodthirsty people of Rome. I am that victim."
She gazed at the city below. "Vile place! Vile people! And to think that a Ptolemy should be paraded before them like a criminal, and put to death like a dog. The gods will have much to answer for when I join them in Elysium!"
She turned around and transfixed me with a smoldering gaze. She seemed much older than her nineteen years, and projected a presence beyond her stature. "But Hieronymus eluded the Fates. He was the Scapegoat who escaped! We were hoping that some of his good fortune would rub off on us—eh, Ganymedes? Alas, his luck must have rubbed off on something, if he was murdered, as you say. How well did you know him?"
I briefly explained my relationship with Hieronymus, and gave a reason for coming. "Since his death, I've been reading his personal papers. He said very kind things about you." In truth, he had written very little about Arsinoë. Yet he had visited her more than once. Why had he come back to see her, if there was nothing of interest to report? Hieronymus had not even mentioned Ganymedes, which seemed odd, given the eunuch's obvious infatuation with him.
Had Hieronymus been so embarrassed by Ganymedes' attentions that he kept silent about them, even in his private journal? I thought not. Hieronymus was not easily flustered, and not easily silenced. If he had considered the eunuch's infatuation absurd, he would have said so; it was not like Hieronymus to miss a chance to ridicule someone. But such was not the case.
This left a curious possibility: that the attraction had been mutual. I tended to think of Hieronymus as a voluptuary with an appetite for beautiful boys or girls; such were the pleasures that had been offered to him when he was the pampered Scapegoat. Plain-faced Ganymedes hardly seemed a likely recipient for his passions. But there is nothing as unpredictable as the attraction of one mortal for another.
What did I know about Hieronymus's most secret longings, or about Ganymedes, for that matter? No doubt there was more to the eunuch than met the eye, I thought—and winced at the cutting pun Hieronymus could have extracted from that observation. Ganymedes had risen to a position of power in one of the most competitive royal courts in the world, amid the most elegant and sophisticated surroundings imaginable. His learning and wit had served him well; he had lived the sort of life that Hieronymus should have lived, had Fortune not turned against him when he was young. Then Fortune turned against Ganymedes, at a time when Hieronymus seemed to be living a charmed existence. Each might have served as a mirror image to the other. Could that have been the root of a mutual attraction?
If Hieronymus had indeed felt drawn to the eunuch, it was perhaps not surprising that no mention of the fact appeared in his papers. He would not have told Calpurnia, considering it none of her business, and I suspected he would have kept such feelings out of his personal journal, which was more a repository for scathing observations and witty wordplay than for heartfelt confessions.
I turned to the tearful Ganymedes. I looked long and hard into his glittering eyes, and knew that my supposition was right.
Hieronymus, Hieronymus! Will you never cease to surprise me? Even in death, you throw up new puzzles.
Had Arsinoë known? Had she allowed the two of them privacy, when Hieronymus came to visit? His visits could not have lasted long; the guards would not have allowed it. It might be that the intimacy of the Scapegoat and the eunuch extended to no more than a touch or a fleeting kiss. Some relationships are all the more intense for being limited by tragic circumstance.
"Wait a moment!" Arsinoë walked up to me and stared at my face. "I
knew
you looked familiar, and I now I know why. You were with Caesar in Alexandria! Do you deny it?"
"It's true, Your Majesty. I was in the royal palace when Caesar was there. But I don't recall that you and I ever met—"
"I remember you, nonetheless. I recognize your face. You were among the Romans in the grand reception hall that day—the morning after Cleopatra smuggled herself into Caesar's presence and into his bed. Caesar gathered all the royal siblings and proceeded to apportion our father's kingdom among us. Cleopatra and Ptolemy were to share the throne in Alexandria. I was to be given Cyprus. Of course, that arrangement lasted as long as a drop of water in the Egyptian desert." She looked me up and down. "Who are you? One of Caesar's officers?"
"Certainly not."
"One of his political advisers? Or one of those merchants who came to Egypt with Caesar to pillage our grain supply?"
"I didn't arrive in Alexandria with Caesar, Your Majesty. I traveled to Egypt on personal business. I happened to find myself in the royal palace only because—"
"How well do you know my sister?"
I came to a halt in mid-speech, my mouth open.
Arsinoë locked her eyes on mine. "No ready answer for that question, eh? When did you last see Cleopatra?"
The crocodile had stirred within her. The menacing edge in her voice sent a chill up my spine, never mind that it came from a plump, teenaged girl who at that moment was a helpless captive. This was the conquered enemy whom Caesar considered formidable enough to be paraded in his triumph, and dangerous enough to be put to death.
If I lied, she would know. "I saw your sister this morning, Your Majesty. I've just come from visiting her, as a matter of fact."
"Did she send you to spy on me? Is she afraid I might yet escape? I would if I could! And then I'd go straight to the villa where Caesar is keeping her, like his personal whore, and strangle her with my bare hands!"
She clutched the air with her plump little fingers. The illusion of the crocodile vanished. She was a furious, very frightened child. She bolted toward me. I grabbed her wrists.
"Unhand me, you filthy Roman!" she shouted.
Ganymedes started toward us, but Rupa blocked his way.
"By the ka of my own father, I swear that I am not your sister's spy," I said. The oath seemed to calm her, but I kept a firm grip on her wrists.
"Then what business did you have with her?"
"We talked about Hieronymus."
"Hieronymus visited Cleopatra as well?"
"Yes. But he was not your enemy, and neither am I."
Arsinoë tore herself from my grip and turned her face away. She trembled and heaved, then steadied herself. "Tell Caesar, or my sister, or whatever person sent you, that the rightful queen of Egypt is ready to confront her fate. She shall do so with her head held high and her shoulders back. She will not weep, she will not tremble, she will not tear her hair and beg for mercy from the Roman mob. Nor will she throw herself from this balcony—though I suspect that was Caesar's hope when he placed us in these quarters, that I would kill myself and save him the shame of executing a woman."
She turned to face me, sufficiently composed to stare into my eyes again. "My fate is in the hands of the gods. But so is Caesar's, whether he knows it or not. His crimes against me are an offense to the gods, who never forget and seldom forgive. Caesar will not escape their judgment. When the time comes, his punishment will be terrible. Mark my words!"
The door flew open. One of the guards stepped into the room. "What's the shouting about?"
"My visitors will leave now." Arsinoë turned her back on me and returned to the balcony. Ganymedes, with his nose in the air, strode past me to join her.
As we made our way down the many flights of steps, I pondered the threat posed to Caesar, and to Cleopatra, by Arsinoë. She would certainly kill them both, if she could. The death of Cleopatra would clear the way for Arsinoë to seize control in Alexandria, presuming she could return there alive. The death of Caesar could lead to chaos in Rome and to full independence for Egypt. Yet what means did Arsinoë possess to bring about anyone's death or to engineer her own escape? Did she have confederates in the city, ready to act on her behalf? Might there be individuals in the entourage of Cleopatra who were secretly loyal to Arsinoë?
These were idle speculations. I had no reason to think that Arsinoë could possibly devise a double assassination and a last-minute escape. And yet, Hieronymus had asserted that the threat to Caesar came from an unforeseen quarter. . . .
Skipping ahead of me down the steps, Rupa kept turning back, attempting to tell me something by using his personal system of gestures and facial expressions. I frowned, unable to understand him.
"What are you trying to say, Rupa? Here, stop for a moment, so that I can see you clearly."
He was fairly bursting with emotion. He made a shapely gesture to indicate Arsinoë; that was clear enough. But the feeling he was trying to express was so grand it defeated his vocabulary.
I smiled sadly. "Yes, Rupa, I agree. In her own way, Arsinoë
is
magnificent."
He nodded vigorously. I saw a bemused look on his face and tears in his eyes.
Oh, Rupa!
I thought.
It's no good for a fellow like you to have such feelings for a princess
—
especially a princess who'll be dead tomorrow.
XII
"So, you managed to endure them both in one day," said Calpurnia. "Which sister struck you as the more wicked?"
The last rays of sunlight from the windows illuminated the room with a soft glow; it was not quite the hour of lighting lamps. Caesar's wife and her haruspex sat side by side while Rupa and I remained standing. Porsenna's yellow costume was the brightest thing in the room; it seemed to absorb all the ambient light and cast it back again.
"
'Wicked'
is not necessarily a word I would use to describe either of them," I said. "They're not as simple as that."
"Nonsense! Don't tell me you've been taken in by the so-called Ptolemaic mystique, Finder—this absurd notion they put about regarding their supposed divinity."
I raised an eyebrow. "The new statue of Caesar on the Capitoline declares him to be a demigod, I believe."
"Descending from a goddess and incarnating a goddess are two different things," she said.
"I'll have to take your word for that."
Calpurnia ignored my sardonic tone. "All this fuss they make about the many generations of their royal line, going back to the first Ptolemy. When did he reign? Two hundred and fifty years ago? My own family descends from King Numa, and he lived more than six hundred years ago. The Ptolemies are mere upstarts compared to the Calpurnii. Isn't that right, Uncle Gnaeus?"