Steven Saylor: The judgement of Caesar

What was he talking about? Did he have spies and assassins close to Caesar, plotting to do away with him? I stared back at Pompey and said nothing.

"Lower your eyes, damn you! A man in your position-think of those traveling with you, if not of yourself. You're all at my mercy!"

Would he really harm Bethesda to take vengeance on me? I tried to steady the quaver in my voice. "I'm traveling with a young mute of simple intelligence, two slave boys, and my wife, who is not well. I find it hard to believe that the Great One would stoop to exact vengeance on such-"

"Oh, shut up!" Pompey made a noise of disgust and looked sidelong at his wife. Some unspoken communication passed between them, and the exchange seemed to calm him. I sensed that Cornelia was his anchor, the one thing he could count on now that everything else, including his own judgment, had failed him so miserably.

Pompey now refused to look at me. "Go on, get out!" he said between clenched teeth.

I blinked, not ready to believe that he was dismissing me with my head still on my shoulders.

"Well, what are you waiting for?"

I turned to leave. "But don't think I'm done with you, Finder!" Pompey snapped. "At present I have too much on my mind to fully enjoy seeing the life torn out of you. After I've met with young King Ptolemy and my fortunes have returned to a firmer footing-then I'll summon you again, when I can deal with you at my leisure."

Centurion Macro accompanied me back to the skiff. "You look as pale as a fish belly," he said.

"Do I?"

"Mind your step, getting into the boat. I've been given orders that nothing untoward must happen to you."

"The dagger that was taken from me?"

He laughed. "You won't be seeing that again. Pompey says you mustn't hurt yourself."

Night fell. The sea was calm, the sky clear. Far away to the west, beyond the low marshland of the Nile Delta, I imagined I could descry the Pharos, a pinpoint of light upon an uncertain horizon.

"There!" I said to Bethesda, who stood beside me at the ship's rail. "Do you see it? The Pharos."

She squinted and frowned. "No." "Are you sure?" "My vision is dim tonight."

I held her close. "Do you feel unwell?"

She grimaced. "It seems such a small thing, now. To have come so far for such a petty purpose-"

"Not petty, Wife. You must be well again."

"Toward what end? Our children are all grown."

"Eco and Diana both have given us grandchildren, and now Diana is expecting another."

"And no doubt they'll do a splendid job of raising them, with or without their grandmother. My time on this earth has been good, Master…"

Master? What was she thinking, to call me that? Many years had passed since I made her free and married her. From that day forward she had called me Husband, and not once had I known her to slip and address me as her master. It was the return to Egypt, I told myself, calling her back to her past, confusing her about the present.

"Your time on this earth is far from over, Wife."

"And your time, Husband?" She gave no sign of noticing her earlier error. "When you came back today, I gave thanks to Isis, for it seemed a miracle. But the centurion forbade the captain to sail on. That means the Great One isn't done with you."

"The Great One has far greater concerns than me. He's come to seek King Ptolemy's assistance. All Pompey's other allies-the Eastern potentates and moneylenders and mercenaries who gave him their allegiance before Pharsalus-have deserted him. But his ties to Egypt are strong. If he can persuade King Ptolemy to take his side, then he yet has a hope to defeat Caesar. Egypt has grain and gold. Egypt even has a Roman army, garrisoned here for the last seven years to keep the peace."

"Something they've singularly failed to do, if Ptolemy is engaged in a civil war with his sister Cleopatra," said Bethesda.

"So it's ever been in Egypt, at least in our lifetimes. To gain power, the Ptolemaic siblings intermarry, conspire among themselves, even murder one another. Sister marrying brother, brother murdering sister-what a family! As savage and peculiar as those animal-headed gods the locals worship."

"Don't scoff! You're in the realm of those gods now, Master." She had done it again. I made no remark, but sighed and held her closer.

"So you see, Pompey has far too much to think about to be bothered with me." I said the words with all the conviction I could muster. When sleep is distant, the night is long. Bethesda and I lay together on our little cot in the cramped passenger cabin, separated from Rupa and the boys by a flimsy screen woven from rushes. Rupa snored softly; the boys breathed steadily, submerged in the deep sleep of children. The ship rocked very slightly on the calm sea. I was weary, my mind numb, but sleep would not come.

Had it not been for the storm, we would have been in Alexandria that night, safe and snug in some inn in the Rhakotis district, with a steady floor beneath our feet and a proper roof above our heads, our bellies full of delicacies from the market, our heads awhirl with the sights and sounds of a teeming city I had not seen since I was young. Come the dawn, I would have hired a boat to take us up the long canal to the banks of the Nile. Bethesda would do what she had come to do, and I would do what I had come to do-for I, too, had a reason for visiting the Nile, a purpose about which Bethesda knew nothing…

At the foot of our sleeping cot, where it served each morning as a dressing table for Bethesda and each evening as a dining table for all five of us, was a traveling trunk. Inside the trunk, nestled amid clothing, shoes, coins, and cosmetics, was a sealed bronze urn. Its contents were the ashes of a woman called Cassandra. She had been Rupa's sister, and more than that, his protector, for Rupa was simple as well as mute, and could not make his own way in the world. Cassandra had been very special to me, as well, though our relationship had very nearly proven fatal to us both. I had managed to keep the affair secret from Bethesda only because of her illness, which had dulled her intuition along with her other senses. Cassandra and Rupa had come to Rome from Alexandria; Rupa wanted to return his sister to the land of their youth and to scatter her ashes in the Nile, restoring her remains to the great cycle of earth, air, fire, and water. The urn that contained her ashes loomed in my mind like a fifth passenger among us, unseen and unheard but often in my thoughts.

If all had gone well, tomorrow Bethesda would have bathed in the Nile, and Cassandra's ashes would have been mingled with the river's sacred waters: duties discharged, health restored, the closing of a dark chapter, and, I had hoped, the opening of a brighter one. But that was not how things had turned out.

Was I to blame for my own fate? I had killed a man; disowned my beloved Meto; fallen in love with Cassandra, whose ashes were only a few feet away. Was it any wonder the gods had abandoned me? For sixty-two years they had watched over me and rescued me from one scrape after another, either because they were fond of me, or merely because they were amused by the peculiar twists and turns of my life's story. Had they now grown disinterested, distracted by the grander drama of the war that had swept over the world? Or had they watched my actions, judged me harshly, and found me no longer worthy of life? Surely some god, somewhere, had been laughing that afternoon when Pompey and I met, two broken men brought to the edge of ruin.

Thus ran my thoughts that night, and they kept sleep far away.

Bethesda slept and must have dreamed, to judge by her low murmurs and the occasional twitching of her fingers. Her dreams appeared to be uneasy, but I did not rouse her; wake a sleeper in middream, and the dark phantoms linger; but let a dream run its course, and the sleeper wakes with no memory of it. Soon enough Bethesda might have to face a nightmare from which there would be no waking. How would I die? Would Bethesda be forced to witness the act? Afterwards, how would she remember me? Above all else, a Roman must strive to face his end with dignity. I would have to remember that and think of Bethesda and the last memory of me she would carry, the next time the Great One summoned me.