Steven Saylor: Wrath of the Furies

My voice trailed away. Bethesda clutched my arm. “Then what does it say?”

“That’s it. There is no more.”

“But there must be. That can’t be the end of it.”

I nodded and sighed. “You’re right. Something tells me this is just the beginning.”

“That final, incomplete sentence-how do you suppose it would end?” asked Berynus.

I was back at the eunuchs’ house after a long, busy day in the city. The hour was late, but my hosts often stayed up well past sunset, talking and dining by starlight and the soft glow of lamps on the roof terrace. With the sound of waves gently lapping the beach as backdrop, the setting could not have been more serene, even as my own state of mind could not have been more turbulent. In my distress, I had taken both of them into my confidence, explaining the circumstances of my parting with Antipater and reading the fragment aloud to them.

Holding the scrap of parchment in my hand, by the light of a nearby lamp I stared at the familiar handwriting. “What comes next? I suppose … I suppose it would say: ‘If anybody … if anybody could help me, it would be … Gordianus.’”

“You’re certain this was written by Antipater?” asked Kettel, giving me a quizzical look and lacing his pudgy fingers beneath his multiple chins.

“Absolutely. The handwriting is unmistakable.”

“And that’s all that arrived, that single scrap of parchment?” said Berynus, pursing his thin lips.

“Yes. The fragment begins and ends in mid-sentence. Clearly, it’s been taken from some longer piece of writing.”

“From a letter, perhaps?” said Kettel.

“Not a letter addressed to me, obviously, since he refers to me in the third person. Not a letter at all, I suspect. And certainly not an official document of any sort, or something meant for publication; that would have been dictated to a scribe, while this is in his own hand. It seems to have been written more to himself than to someone else. Or written for posterity. It’s as if Antipater wanted to record the events going on around him.”

“But why?” asked Berynus.

“Because he has a story to tell, but fears that he may not be around to tell it much longer. These words were written by a frightened man. A man who fears for his life.” I sighed and lowered the piece of parchment. “And here I am in Egypt, frittering away my time, unable to help him.”

“I thought you parted on bad terms with the old fellow,” said Kettel.

“What if I did? He still thinks of me fondly. He says so in this fragment. He wishes that I were with him.”

“He doesn’t actually say that .” This came from Bethesda, who sat on a rug before me, massaging my feet, which were sore from so much walking that day. My hosts had grown used to my slave’s unruly manners and my tendency to indulge her, and hardly raised an eyebrow when she made bold to enter the conversation.

“He doesn’t say what?” I asked.

Bethesda raised an eyebrow and resumed massaging my feet. “He doesn’t say that he wishes you were with him, Master. What he actually says is that he could use someone with certain of your qualities. That is not exactly the same thing.” Like many who cannot read, Bethesda was a careful listener and had a sharp memory.

I laughed. “You sound like a Roman lawyer, splitting hairs! Though you hardly look like one.” The soft light of the lamps picked out glints of many colors amid her black tresses, and the creamy smoothness of her forehead and cheeks shone like ivory. “The point is clear: Antipater desperately needs someone to help him, someone he can trust. Instead, he finds himself alone, and in terrible danger.”

“Whose fault is that?” asked Kettel. “From what you’ve told us, Gordianus, the whole time the two of you traveled together, your old tutor was secretly spying for King Mithridates. And no sooner did he reveal the truth to you here in Alexandria than he vanished, leaving you to fend for yourself. Well, now you know where he ended up. He’s in Ephesus, residing with this old pupil of his, Eutropius-another supporter of Mithridates, from the way Antipater describes him. So he’s hardly alone, is he? He and his host should both be happy, since the king has virtually driven the Romans out of Asia.”

“And yet,” I said, “Antipater doesn’t feel safe, even in the house of Eutropius. He fears for his life, and the source of his fear appears to be the king himself-or else the ‘vicious little queen,’ as Antipater calls her. Somehow Antipater must have offended them, and now he fears he may be killed at any moment.”

“If your old tutor has been swept up in the dangers of court intrigue, that’s not your fault, Gordianus,” said Kettel. “Spying is a dangerous profession. It requires deceiving people. What is a spy, but a master of deception-and who can trust such a man, or ever be certain where his loyalties lie? Believe me, no one is more suspicious and distrustful than a king. When Berynus and I served in the royal palace under King Ptolemy, we saw many a shady character come and go. Some received great rewards at the whim of our master. Others lost their heads. Not a few met with both fates-first the reward, then the beheading.”

An image flashed in my mind: Antipater with his neck on an executioner’s chopping block, and the blade descending, hewing his head from his shoulders, sending his white-bearded, white-haired head tumbling off in one direction while blood spurted from his decapitated neck. I gasped and gave such a jerk that Bethesda clutched my feet to steady me.

“There are other questions that need to be asked,” said Berynus, frowning and training his beady gaze on me. “If this ‘fragment,’ as you call it, wasn’t sent to you by Antipater, then who did send it, and how did the sender come into possession of it? And why was it sent to you, here in Egypt? This odd, orphaned scrap of parchment was sent to you by an unknown person with an unknown agenda. There’s court intrigue behind this, I’ll wager. And you, Gordianus, would do well to stay clear of it.”

Kettel nodded sagely, compressing his multiple chins. “Or it may be that this scrap comes not from a secret diary but from a letter written by Antipater-a letter not addressed to you, Gordianus, and therefore none of your business. Or…” He narrowed his eyes until they were almost lost between his fat cheeks and the furrows of his forehead, and his pupils glinted like shards of glass reflecting the starlight. “Or could it be that Antipater is behind the whole thing-that the master spy contrived this ‘fragment’ as ruse to stir your sympathy, and sent it to you anonymously.”

“But for what possible purpose?” I said.

Kettel and Berynus answered in unison: “To lure you to Ephesus!”

I shook my head. “Such an idea is … utterly fantastic. If Antipater wanted me to join him, he would simply write to me and say so.”

“After the things he did to you?” said Kettel.

“Lying to you, betraying you, making a fool of you?” added Berynus.

“I wouldn’t exactly say that Antipater made a…” I shook my head. What they said was true. If Antipater had written to me openly, I would have broken the seal on such a letter with my guard up, bristling with resentment before I read a single word. The fragment had effected quite a different response; it caught me off-guard and sent me reeling with puzzlement and alarm. If Antipater wanted to elicit my sympathy rather than my suspicion, sending such a contrived document in place of a letter would be one way to do it. But was Antipater that devious?

“Either your old tutor wants to lure you to Ephesus, or someone else does,” said Berynus. “What other result could the sender be hoping for?”