Steven Saylor - The Triumph Of Caesar

"I'm afraid that's why I've come. I have some bad news for your mistress."

She responded with a guttural, very unladylike laugh. "Bad news? On this of all days, the day before- What news could possibly qualify as 'bad,' considering the fate that hangs over the princess?" She shook her head and glowered at me-setting the wrinkles into a new configuration-then suddenly raised her eyebrows and gasped. "Oh, no! You don't mean that something has happened to Hieronymus? Not dear Hieronymus, of all people?"

"I'm afraid so. But I would prefer to deliver the news directly to your mistress. Or perhaps to her minister, Ganymedes-"

Even as I said the name, so did someone else who had just entered the room. Over the lady's shoulder, stepping toward us through a doorway, I saw the princess Arsinoe.

"Ganymedes!" She was saying. "Ganymedes, who's that at the door? What do they want?"

I stared at the lady-in-waiting. I blinked. In an instant, the illusion created by my own assumptions melted away. I looked at the bony hands; the flesh was soft and had never known physical labor, but they were not a woman's hands. I looked at the throat and detected the telltale bump, like a tiny apple. I looked at the plain, wrinkled face and wondered how I could have been mistaken. The lady was no lady. It was Ganymedes the eunuch who stood before me.

Arsinoe 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, Arsinoe 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?" Arsinoe 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 Arsinoe. 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.