John Roberts - The Princess and the Pirates

“Not at all! If they are, we will just bring in more couches! This isn’t Rome after all.”

“Then we will be delighted.”

“Wonderful!” Flavia fairly glowed. Julia was right. This shameless female reprobate was flattered at attention from a patrician. She turned to me. “Senator, please ask your friend Milo to come as well. Having the three of you in my house will make me the envy of Paphos.” Such are the demands of social life in the provinces. As for Milo, I felt no apprehension about introducing him to the voracious Flavia. He was a match for anything save the massed hostility of the Senate.

“Now,” Julia said, as we walked back toward the center of the town, “we must hire a litter to take us to their house this evening, if there’s one to be had in this town.”

“There won’t be one for hire, not with every snob in the eastern sea come to visit. I’ll talk to Doson, Silvanus’s majordomo. He’ll lend us one for a small bribe. The household staff have nothing much to do now anyway.”

“Good idea. Then you must take me to see Cleopatra.”

“Yes, dear.” I was not being timidly compliant. It was just that Julia, besides being single-minded, was fearsomely competent at this sort of operation.

Our litter-arranging mission accomplished, we found Cleopatra aboard her ship. In fact her golden boat was waiting for us at the dock. “She stationed a slave to ambush us as soon as we came in sight,” Julia commented. “Wasn’t that thoughtful of her?” She seated herself amid the colorful, scented cushions. I remained standing, trying to project the image of the salty naval commander, and actually managed to retain my feet all the way to the spectacular ship.

“Julia!” Cleopatra cried, as my wife was lifted aboard expertly by a team of solicitous slaves. “How wonderful to see you again!” Julia tried to bow, but Cleopatra swept her up in a sisterly embrace.

“Princess, you overwhelm me. You can scarcely remember me. You were just a little girl, and my husband was a mere assistant to the Roman envoy.” I was a bit nettled, but Julia always knew how to do the proper thing in situations like this. I clambered up the ladder after her and held my tongue.

“I remember you wonderfully well, don’t speak nonsense. You and your friend Fausta were the first Roman ladies I ever met, and you made a profound impression on me.”

I’ll bet Fausta did, I thought. I said nothing. She seated us at a table on the fantail beneath a striped canopy, fanned by slaves equipped with palm-fiber fans. These are far more efficient than the beautiful but ineffective ostrich-feather fans affected so much by those who wish to ape Oriental standards of luxury.

“You flatter me, Princess.” I noted that Julia was ever so slightly deferential. She was Roman aristocracy, but Cleopatra was Greek-Egyptian royalty.

“Not the least. I’ve lived most of my life among the royal and noble ladies of my part of the world. Most are as silent, cowed, and ignorant as peasant women, only far sillier. Roman ladies are so much more intelligent and assertive. I long to visit Rome and be introduced to your society. I will feel that at last I am among equals.” The woman’s grasp of flattery was phenomenal.

“I would ask you to stay with us while you are in Rome,” Julia told her sadly, “but our house is far too humble. My father’s house is far finer, but you really must stay in my uncle’s house. When he is in Rome he lives in the great Domus Publica. It is actually owned by the State, but as Pontifex Maximus it is his for life and he always puts it at the disposal of visiting dignitaries and royalty.”

“Ah, yes. The great Julius Caesar is your uncle, is he not? You really must tell me all about him. The whole world is fascinated by Caesar.” There went the hook.

I gave half an ear to their talk while a wonderful lunch was set before us. As I munched on the delicacies, I looked out to the open sea past the harbor mole. Out there, Milo was drilling my crews. He had them rowing in dashes, and once I could have sworn I saw a ship leap clear of the water under oar power, like a fish chased by a shark. And I thought Vd had them rowing well.

As always, when seeing such a thing, I wondered how one man can inspire such obedience while another, I for instance, could not. How did a long-haired dwarf like Alexander get men to follow him all the way to India? How did Hannibal, scion of a nation of merchants, weld a polyglot horde of Gauls, Spaniards, Africans, and others, all armed differently and none of them knowing a word of Punic, into an army that consistently defeated larger Roman forces? And how did he keep them together and fighting for twenty years without a whiff of mutiny? How did Caesar do what he was doing, which I had seen firsthand and still was at a loss to describe? I could never put a finger on it. But Titus Milo, in his own way, was a man as unique as Caesar, and men did his bidding almost joyously, breaking their backs and hearts for him. He was one of those men who could inspire fear and love at the same time.

Whatever it was, I was not going to argue with it. Just having Milo there with me was an enormous relief. It meant that I could leave the naval duties to one of the few people in the world I trusted utterly. It meant I could devote my attention to finding out who had murdered Silvanus. And I was certain that that, in turn, would tell me who was profiting from this little upsurge of piracy in the East.

The litter was a bit larger than the ones common in Rome. This was because most Roman streets were so narrow that comfortably wide conveyances were impracticable. The litter slaves knew their job and the trip to the house of Nobilior was a pleasant one, though slowed by the throngs in the streets. Julia and I had taken an afternoon nap after Cleopatra’s reception and were now ready for an evening of entertainment and intrigue.

Julia had sounded Cleopatra out about Flavia, whom the princess had described as “a dreadful woman but great fun.” She had also learned a great deal about Cleopatra’s mission on Cyprus. It turned out that Ptolemy had narrowly survived an attempted coup, was conducting a ruthless purge of his guards and nobles, and wanted his beloved daughter to be well out of it.

“I commiserated with her about Berenice,” Julia said, meaning Cleopatra’s ill-fated older sister. “I truly liked her, silly woman though she was. Do you know what Cleopatra said? ‘The duties of royalty are terrible.’ She insisted that her father grieved for the daughter he had to execute as deeply as she did herself. I suppose it must be true.”

“Ah, well,” I said, “we always have old Brutus. He ordered the execution of his own sons for the good of the State. Inconsolable afterward, so they say.”

We climbed from the litter, and the carrying slaves squatted beside it patiently. I had no fear that they would sneak off and get drunk because I had not come alone. Having been attacked once and knowing that I had a superfluity of local enemies, I had brought along twenty of my marines as an escort. I had left Hermes to keep an eye on the naval station. I wanted no more acts of sabotage, and I didn’t trust my men as fully as I pretended.

“Senator! Julia! Welcome to our house!” Flavia was turned out in her usual Coan gown, expensive cosmetics, and several pounds of gold, pearls, and jewels. Crowning her was a blonde wig dressed in a towering basketwork of interwoven locks, threaded through with strings of seed pearls and powdered with gold dust. She peered past us. “Was your friend Milo not able to come?”

“He’ll be along presently,” I assured her. “He had some affairs to attend to at the naval base and sends his apologies for his lateness.”

“Oh, wonderful! Now you must come along and meet our other guests.” She seized Julia’s arm and spirited her away, leaving me to follow them onto a broad terrace overlooking the sea. In the center of the terrace was a pool, now drained, where Cretan dancers performed. All around it the guests stood and conversed while servers circulated among them. Sergius Nobilior beckoned to me, and I joined him. He stood with two other men, one of them I recognized: Antonius the metal trader. The other was a very tall, thin man dressed in rich, colorful robes. His face was fine featured and very dark, with huge, black eyes. This had to be the Ethiopian prince Flavia had mentioned. Looking around, I saw that Flavia had plunged with her catch into a group of well-dressed ladies, Cleopatra among their number.