Steven Saylor - Wrath of the Furies

[From the secret diary of Antipater of Sidon:]

Thank Artemis! Gordianus has finally fallen asleep.

The poor boy should have taken a sleeping potion like Freny and slept through the massacre. Now he will have these sounds and images in his head forever.

I will force myself to watch until the very end. I did everything I could to support the king against the Romans, and now I must see the result.

I think I am not long for this world, anyway. Not just because I am an old man, but because I have no more poems in me. My last verses were those I recited aloud in the Grove of the Furies, while Gordianus pretended to speak-before a royal audience, at last! But those words fell on deaf ears. They created a brief sensation, but did not achieve the desired effect. The ritual was interrupted and the sacrifice aborted, but the massacre was not averted. My most ambitious poem was a failure.

These are my last written words, upon this page. Not a poem, not a confession, not an indictment-merely the final scribblings of a man who fancied himself the world’s finest poet, who saw a great deal of the world, who played spy for a while, who came to sorrow in the end. But the sight of you has given me a last moment of joy, Gordianus.

Two nights ago, we were reunited, but our meeting was not exactly a reconciliation-we hardly spoke about the long silence between us, and my hasty departure from Alexandria, and the fact that I deceived you for so long. Circumstances were pressing, and we had no time to speak of all that. But in a way what happened was better, at least for me. We trained our thoughts on a single goal and collaborated on a joint enterprise, devising the words to be spoken by that “uncanny voice,” going over them again and again so that we would both know them by heart. We were like tutor and pupil again-except that in this effort we were equal partners, and working toward a selfless objective, the saving of so many innocent lives. I hope that is how you will remember me, as a poet who used his talents in a noble cause, at least at the end, and not as a skulking spy who tricked an unsuspecting Roman youth.

I give these words to you, Gordianus. They are for your eyes and for no one else’s. When you are done reading them, burn them, lest they be found on your person and get you into trouble.

Looking through what I have written, I see that a few more pages have gone missing. Monime’s minions must have rifled through the pages and stolen a few more. Why did they take a certain page and send it to you, Gordianus? For surely it must have been Monime who lured you here. But why?

I think the queen was determined to destroy me, or rather, to have her husband destroy me, but first he had to be turned absolutely and irrevocably against me. Had she merely shown him this or that incriminating page from my journal, he might simply have laughed it off-the King of Kings has no fear of mere words. But if she could succeed in luring my Roman protege to Ephesus, and catch the two of us in the act of conspiring against the throne, Mithridates could be convinced to kill us both. It was a good thing you played your part so stealthily, Gordianus, and kept your mouth shut. You came to Ephesus and actually met the queen-and she never knew who you were, or your connection to me! Had you been exposed as a Roman and my pupil, Monime would have told the king that I was a double agent and that you were my Roman handler, and that would have been the end of us.

What a creature the queen is! If she had her way, you and I would have been flayed alive-and little Freny would have had her throat cut, just to spite Mithridates.

What I have seen today is the last straw. Not only has my muse been silenced, but any partisanship I felt for the cause of Mithridates is done with. When I imagine that such slaughter is happening not only here but also in cities all over the kingdom, I am sickened.

I have left intact, among these pages, the one I wrote two nights ago, in which I pretended to praise the king and his cause and look forward to the sacrifice. You will understand that I wrote that passage knowing it might very likely be read by one of Monime’s spies, or for all I know, a spy of the king, and it was my intent to put the hounds off the scent. I state this explicitly lest you think that passage was in any way sincere, and that I might have been thinking of betraying you at the last minute.

Even as I write, the killing continues. Words have always been my servants and friends; they desert me now. There are no words to describe this horror. Zoticus of Zeugma is rendered speechless-as mute as Agathon of Alexandria.

[Here ends the secret diary of Antipater of Sidon.]

Eventually, there was no one left to kill.

As darkness fell, bonfires were lit. The people of Ephesus made their way back to the city. The ring of soldiers remained in place to prevent any survivors from escaping under cover of darkness.

I woke early the next day. The black curtain had been removed from the round window. I looked out to see that a thick morning mist covered the plain. The altar was barely visible, a block of marble that seemed to float in the dense fog.

“This is our best chance,” said Samson. “The mist will hide us from the soldiers. If it extends up the river, it will also be hiding the ship that’s waiting for us. And if the ship’s captain agrees to cast off in this fog, we can sail downriver unseen, all the way to the sea.”

Those who were leaving with Samson included Freny, Bethesda, Antipater, and me. Anthea and Amestris would accompany us as far as the ship.

We said our farewells to Zeuxidemus and Kysanias. They were good, decent men. Ephesus would need such men, I thought, when the Romans came to exact vengeance, as sooner or later I knew they would.

We descended the stairs. The interior of the temple was deserted except for a few Megabyzoi, assisted by hierodules, who had already begun the work of purifying the sanctuary. Clouds of incense sweetened the air.

The temple steps were covered with corpses and blood. Freny trembled at the sight. Her sister guided her down the steps.

Our progress across the misty ground was a series of rude surprises, as the swirling fog parted to reveal one horrifying scene of death after another. To have watched the murders from afar was one thing; to see the staring, lifeless bodies lying twisted and broken at my feet was another. Was this the misty realm of Tartarus, where the Furies dwelled? Were they watching us even now?

Then an all-too-human voice called out, “Halt! Stay where you are.”

A small troop of soldiers appeared. Their captain looked us over. “What are you people doing here? Only men sanctioned by the king are allowed to scavenge the bodies. Did you not hear the royal decree read yesterday at the theater? It forbids anyone from looting the corpses, upon immediate penalty of death.”

“The king seems awfully fond of decrees with immediate penalties of death,” muttered Antipater. “So much for Greek notions of judges and trials and juries!”

The captain frowned. “What’s the old man saying?”

It was Anthea who answered. “Can you not see by my yellow gown that I’m a hierodule from the temple? These pilgrims from faraway lands arrived yesterday to worship the goddess. They were trapped in the temple overnight. I was sent by the Great Megabyzus himself to escort them from the sacred precinct.”

The captain gave us another look. “Yes, I see. I’ll escort you, then-”

“There’s no need,” said Anthea. “I know the way.”

“Very well. But you should know that there’s no longer a cordon around the area. If any of the Roman scum did get away from us, they’ll be pretty desperate. Be careful. But if you do meet one of those filth, that fellow looks big enough to take care of you.” He indicated Samson, who responded with a nod but kept his mouth shut.