John Roberts - The Princess and the Pirates

“And I suppose you were one of Gabinius’s officers in Syria and Egypt?”

“That, too. What are we to do with you, Decius Caecilius?”

“We kill him and get away from here,” said another voice I recognized. A pudgy man pushed forward and glared at me with his fists planted on his hips, Sergius Nobilior. “Why couldn’t you have kept chasing after the pirates as the Senate told you to? Did you have to poke your big Metellan nose into everything that was happening on this island? Some of us were doing very well here until you began stirring things up!”

“Nobilior! And our wives have become such good friends!”

“Yes, and a very good time they’re having today, if I know Flavia. And don’t worry, she’d never let me harm a Caesar. You, however, have to go.” He looked at one of the Greeks. “Cut his throat.” Nobody moved.

“My men don’t take orders from you,” Marcinus said. “His wife is a Caesar?”

“Niece to the great Caius Julius,” Nobilior affirmed. “But don’t let that concern you. He’ll be glad to have her a widow. He’ll be able to marry her off to someone far more important.”

“If he’s murdered, there could be a lot of trouble for you,” Marcinus said. “His family is one of the greatest, even if he doesn’t amount to much. But don’t let me stop you. I won’t be here. I’ll be on a leisurely voyage to Alexandria, then home. But do your own throat cutting.”

Nobilior stood there and fumed for a while, then Alpheus spoke up. “Must you Romans be so crude and brutal? He need not be murdered at all.”

“My thought exactly,” I said.

“This is festival time, a time when all the usual strictures on community behavior are relaxed. What more natural than a veteran tavern crawler like Decius Caecilius Metellus should have a bit too much to drink, topple into the harbor on his way back to the naval base, and drown? Let’s get some wine in him and on him, wait until nightfall, and carry him down to the water. The distance isn’t great, and nobody takes notice of men carrying a drunk at a time like this.”

They were discussing my death, but I did not protest. Anything to keep breathing a while longer. Who could tell what might happen? I was working at my bonds. They had used leather straps, and they had a little give to them. I might be able to work them loose if I had long enough. A man was dispatched to search for some wine, which should prove no great quest on that day.

“I am curious,” I said. “Which of you killed Silvanus? And why? You all seemed to have such a cozy arrangement here. Did he get a little too greedy? Or was he frightened of being found out and impeached in Rome? There have been some pretty savage prosecutions lately for unauthorized plundering.”

“Don’t look at me,” Marcinus said. “I had nothing to do with that killing.”

“Don’t tell me you scruple at murder,” I said. “You nearly wiped out an island just to frighten people so they wouldn’t cooperate with me.”

He shrugged. “It isn’t like they were citizens. These islanders are little more than cattle. I didn’t know then I’d be quitting the business so soon, or I wouldn’t have bothered.”

“Yes, rather hard on them, wasn’t it? Nobilior, a few days ago you mentioned your great and good friend Rabirius, financial adviser to King Ptolemy and the man in charge of collecting on those colossal loans. I recently learned that Rabirius had seized the grain revenues and ‘several others’ as partial payment on the debt. Might one of the others be the frankincense monopoly?”

“So you figured that out,” Nobilior said, “Yes, that is right. But Rabirius discovered that the frankincense deliveries were being diverted elsewhere before they reached Alexandria. They were being taken up through Judea and Syria, then brought here to Cyprus, and Silvanus was transferring it to the Holy Society of Dionysus for shipment all over the world.”

No wonder, I thought, the merchant Demades, member in good standing of that society, had mentioned nothing about a cessation of shipment to Alexandria. “Judea and Syria?” I said. “That’s Gabinius’s old territory.

“Yes,” Nobilior said. “He reopened the Great King’s old trade routes for frankincense and silk, as they were in the days before the Ptolemies. He and Silvanus conspired in this, and Rabirius was furious. He told me to put an end to it and even specified how Silvanus should die.”

“So it was you? And Gabinius had nothing to do with it?”

“I should hope not!” He said. “They were friends!”

I was a little crestfallen that my favorite suspect was not the murderer after all. This did not let him off the hook though. There was no mistaking his hostility toward me.

The man returned with a skin of wine. A hand grabbed the hair at the back of my head and tipped it upward. The reed nozzle of the skin was thrust into my mouth and the bag given a squeeze. I swallowed rapidly, then gagged and spit as the man jumped clear.

“You fools!” I said, when I could speak. “Nobody will believe I was drinking that cheap stuff!”

“It all smells the same the next day,” Marcinus assured me. “Give him some more.” The skin was reapplied, then reapplied again. The last try was counterproductive, causing me to vomit spasmodically.

“Now we’ll have to do it all over again,” said the Greek with the skin. He took a drink himself.

“He doesn’t have to be really drunk,” said Alpheus. “He just needs to look and smell that way, and he does already.”

“We’re wasting time,” Nobilior said. “Why not just knock him on the head? He’ll still look like he drowned after being in the water all night.”

“That might leave a mark,” Alpheus pointed out. “But smothering would do the same thing and,” he held up a finger for emphasis, like the chorus master he was, “it will give him the bug-eyed, black-faced aspect of drowning.”

“Excellent idea,” Nobilior said, nodding. “Who has strong hands?”

The time had come for desperate action, and I couldn’t think of a thing to do. I had one possible move. They had not bound my feet. I could be up in a single bound, smash my head into Nobilior’s fat face, then sprint for the door. At least I would die knowing that Nobilior would regret ever having known me, every time he saw his own reflection. I began, carefully, to gather my feet beneath me, leaning forward slightly.

“Careful, he’s planning something,” Alpheus said. They began to turn my way, then the doorway was crowded with people again. I could see armed, hard-faced men, Gabinius’s. Come to kill everybody in sight, I figured. They would be near blind coming in from daylight. Alpheus whirled and came for me with his dagger.

I was off the bale in an instant, but not to butt anyone in the face. I dived and rolled, catching Alpheus just below the knees, toppling him and sending his wreath rolling across the floor to be trampled beneath the scuffling feet. There were shouts and muffled groans and the familiar, butcher-shop sound of blades plunging into bodies and chopping against bone. Light streaming through the doorway glittered on bared blades and glowed redly from the sprays of blood that saturated the air. Among the droplets, flowers and leaves from the festival wreaths drifted to the floor.

Alpheus tried to rise, but I doubled up my legs and let him have both feet beneath the chin. His head snapped back and cracked into an amphora, breaking the heavy clay and spilling poor-quality olive oil onto the floor. If I couldn’t defeat a poet, even with my hands tied behind me, I deserved to die.

“Metellus,” somebody bellowed, “where are you?” I recognized the voice of Aulus Gabinius, come to do me in just like a flamen killing a bull, although just then I felt more like a second-rate sheep, one not even worthy of sacrifice. I looked toward the door, measured the distance, scrambled to my feet, and leapt over a pair of struggling bodies. Even as I did, I saw more people crowding into the doorway. Just my luck.