John Roberts - The Princess and the Pirates

“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.”