'And these others?' said Achillas.
'The Roman's traveling companions. As you can see-'
'I wasn't talking to you,' snapped the captain. The spy winced and groveled.
I cleared my throat. 'The big fellow is called Rupa. Born mute, but not deaf. He was a strongman with a mime troupe in Alexandria before he came to Rome. Through an obligation to his late sister, I adopted him into my family. He's a free man and a Roman citizen now. The two slave boys are brothers. Even among the three of them, I'm not sure one could scrape up the wits to produce a passable spy.'
'Master!' protested Mopsus and Androcles in a single high-pitched voice. Rupa wrinkled his brow, not quite following the train of my comment; his simpleness had the virtue of making him a hard man to insult.
Achillas grunted and suppressed a smile. The eunuch's face was impassive, and remained without expression when the scribe came hurrying back, bearing a scroll of papyrus. The scroll had been rolled to a specific passage, to which the scribe pointed as he handed it over to Pothinus.
' 'Gordianus, called the Finder,' ' Pothinus read. 'So you are in my book of names, after all. 'Roman, born during the consulship of Spurius Postumius Albinus and Marcus Minucius Rufus in the Year of Rome 643-that would make you, what, sixty-two years old? And looking every day of it, I must say! 'Wife: half-Egyptian, half-Jewish, called Bethesda, formerly his slave (acquired in Alexandria), mother to his daughter. Two sons, both adopted, one freeborn and called Eco, the other slave-born and called Meto-about whom, see addenda.' ' Pothinus looked pointedly at the scribe, who lowered his head like a scolded dog and ran off to fetch another scroll. The eunuch was about to continue reading when, catching sight of someone behind me, he abruptly assumed a subservient posture, with his hands at his sides and his head bowed. Achillas did the same.
The piping of a flute accompanied the arrival of the young king. All activity in the large chamber ceased. The various scribes and officers stopped whatever they were doing, as if petrified by Medusa. Some hierarchy, unclear to me, apparently allowed some of them to remain standing while others dropped to their knees, and still others prostrated themselves entirely, falling flat on their faces with arms outstretched. If I was in doubt as to the procedure incumbent on me, the spy informed me of it.
'Drop down, you Roman dog! Down on your knees, with your face to the floor!' He punctuated this order with several pokes to my ribs.
I caught only a glimpse of the king, resplendent in robes of gold and silver and wearing the cobra-headed uraeus crown. With my hands tied behind me, it was not easy to drop to my knees and lower my face to the floor. The posture was humiliating. Behind me I heard Androcles whisper to his brother, 'Look at the master with his backside stuck up in the air!' This was followed by a tiny yelp as the spy kicked Androcles to remind him that he had assumed the same vulnerable posture. The spy then dropped to his knees, just as the king and his retinue came striding by.
'Captain Achillas, and my Lord Chamberlain,' said Ptolemy. A boy he might be, but his voice had already changed into that of a man, for it was lower than I expected.
'Your Majesty,' the two said in unison.
'My loyal subjects may rise and go about their business,' said Ptolemy.
Pothinus conveyed the order. At once the room was abuzz with movement, as if statues had abruptly sprung to life.
The spy stood. I began to do the same, but he gave me a kick and hissed, 'Stay as you are!'
From my position I could see little, but I could hear everything. The piper continued to play, but lowered his volume. It was a curious tune, simple on first hearing but repeated in odd variations. Ptolemy's father had been dubbed Ptolemy Auletes, the Piper, on account of his love of the instrument. Was this one of the late king's compositions? For young Ptolemy to go about accompanied by this link to his father was the sort of device that Roman politicians used; in a struggle to the death with his sister Cleopatra, it behooved the young king to use any means possible to lay claim to his father's legacy.
'I thought you would be refreshing yourself in the royal quarters, Your Majesty, after the rigors of the day's journey,' said Pothinus.
Ptolemy did not answer at once. He turned from Pothinus and stepped toward me, until I could sense his presence just above me, so close I could smell the perfumed leather of his sandals. 'I'm told you've captured a Roman spy, Lord Chamberlain.'
'Perhaps, Your Majesty. Perhaps not. I'm trying to delve to the bottom of the matter. Ah, here's one of my scribes now, with the additional information I called for.'
I gathered that another scroll had been delivered. While Pothinus read, muttering to himself, the king remained standing over me. I kept my eyes on a horned beetle that happened to be traversing the patch of floor just in front of my nose.
'Well, Lord Chamberlain?' said the king. 'What have you discovered?'
Pothinus cleared his throat. 'The man is Gordianus, called the Finder. He's made a career of gathering evidence for advocates in the Roman courts. Thus it appears he's gained the confidence of any number of powerful Romans over the years: Cicero, Marc Antony-'
'And Pompey!' said the spy, standing behind me. There was a moment of awkward silence. The man had spoken out of turn, and I could imagine Pothinus glaring at him.
'Yes, Pompey,' said the eunuch dryly. 'But according to my sources, the two of them had a severe falling-out at the beginning of the war between Pompey and Caesar. Thus, it's quite unlikely that this Roman was a spy for Pompey, as his captor alleges. Quite the opposite, in all probability!'
'What do you mean, Lord Chamberlain?'
'The fellow has a son, Your Majesty, called Meto, who happens to be one of Caesar's closest confidants; as a matter of fact, the other soldiers refer to him as 'Caesar's tent-mate.' '
I groaned inwardly. Meto's exact relationship with his imperator had long been a puzzlement to me, and a vexation when others gossiped about it. Now it seemed that such speculation had reached even here, to Egypt!
Ptolemy was intrigued. ' 'Caesar's tent-mate'? What exactly does that imply, Lord Chamberlain?'
The eunuch sniffed. 'The Romans constantly spread vulgar sexual gossip about one another, Your Majesty. Politicians insult their rivals with charges of engaging in this or that demeaning act. Common citizens say anything they please about those who rule them. Soldiers make up riddles and ditties and even marching songs that boast of their commander's sexual conquests, or tease him about his more embarrassing proclivities.'
'Tease him? His soldiers… tease… Caesar?'
'The Romans are not like us, Your Majesty. They're rather childish when it comes to sexual matters, and they respect neither one another nor the gods. Their primitive form of government, with every citizen at war with every other in a never-ending struggle for riches and power, has made them as impious as they are brutish.'
'Caesar's soldiers are fantastically loyal. They fight to the death for him,' said King Ptolemy quietly. 'Isn't that what you've told me, Lord Chamberlain?'
'So our intelligence would indicate. There are many examples to prove the point, such as the soldier in the naval engagement at Massilia who continued to fight even after losing several limbs, and died shouting Caesar's name; and also-'
'Yet they feel free to make light of him. How can this be? I had thought his men must be so fiercely devoted to Caesar because they recognized some aspect of godhood in him and willingly subjugated themselves to his divinity; is he not said to be descended from the Roman goddess Venus? But a mortal does not make fun of a god; nor does a god permit his worshippers to ridicule him.'
'As I said, Your Majesty, the Romans are an impious people, politically corrupt, sexually unsophisticated, and spiritually polluted. That is why we must take every precaution against them.'
Ptolemy stepped even closer to me. The beetle under my nose scurried out of the way to make room for the toe of the king's sandal. His nails, I could not help but notice, were immaculately groomed. His feet smelled of rosewater.
'So, Lord Chamberlain, this man knows Caesar?'
'Yes, Your Majesty. And if he is a spy, rather than having been employed by Pompey, it seems more likely, in my judgment, that he was sent here by Caesar to spy upon Pompey and witness his arrival on our shores.'
'Then we certainly gave him an eyeful!' said Achillas, abruptly entering the conversation.
'Rise to your knees, Roman,' said Ptolemy.
