Until that day, in Alexandria, those had been the very last words I had spoken to him.
'There's nothing to discuss and no question of forgiveness. It's quite simple: This is my room, at least for the moment, and you don't belong here. You shouldn't have come. I suppose you followed me, or had me followed, since that's your way of doing things-'
'No!' Merianis spoke up. 'I brought him here.'
'You? But how-?'
'Earlier, when I delivered you for your dinner with Caesar, I waited at the checkpoint. A little later, Apollodorus appeared, bearing the gift for Caesar. Meto came. He recognized me from the other day, when the king officially received Caesar on the landing. We spoke, very briefly-'
'But not so briefly that Meto didn't learn all he needed to know about you. He's become quite expert at extracting valuable information. It's one of his duties.' And one of yours as well? I thought, but did not say aloud; for it was clear to me now that Merianis was not merely a priest-ess of Isis, but a spy for the incarnation of Isis, Queen Cleopatra.
Merianis persisted. 'Later-after I'd brought you back to this room and the king's men whisked you away-Meto sent a courier requesting me to return to the checkpoint. I met him there. He asked me to show him here, to your room. Was it wrong to do so? Meto is your son, is he not?'
Ptolemy and Pothinus had known of my estrangement from Meto. Had Merianis not also known of it? Perhaps she was more innocent than I thought-or perhaps not. I suddenly found myself full of suspicion, and I loathed the feeling. It was into just such a morass of doubt and double-dealing that I had found myself immersed in Massilia, and the result had been my breach with both Meto and Caesar. The two of them had followed me to Alexandria, bringing their poisonous treachery to a city already riven by deceit. I felt like a man struggling in quicksand, unable to find a foothold. I wanted only to be left alone.
'Go, Merianis.'
'Gordianus-called-Finder, if by bringing your son here I have offended you-'
'Go!'
She frowned and wrinkled her brow, then turned and exited through the open doorway.
'As for you, Meto-'
'Papa, don't speak rashly! Please, I beg you-'
'Silence!'
He bit his lip and lowered his eyes, but seemed compelled to speak. 'Papa, if it means something to you, I've begun to share your doubts about Caesar.' He gazed at me for a moment before looking away, as if taken aback at the enormity and the recklessness of the words he had just uttered.
I stared at him until he returned my gaze. 'Elaborate.'
He looked sidelong at Rupa.
I nodded. 'I see. Your training as a spy has taught you to hold your tongue in front of a stranger. But I won't ask Rupa to leave the room. Or the boys, either. Anything you have to say to me can be said to them as well.'
'This is difficult enough for me!' Meto glared at Rupa with an emotion that went beyond mere distrust. I had disowned Meto; I had adopted Rupa. Did Meto feel he had been replaced?
I shook my head. 'Say what you have to say.'
He drew a deep breath. 'Ever since Pharsalus… no, even before that. Since the military operations at Dyrrachium… or was it when Caesar was last in Rome, using his powers as dictator to settle the problems that had cropped up in his absence? No, even earlier; I think it must have begun when I was reunited with him at Massilia- when you disowned me there in the town square, even as Caesar was basking in the triumph of the city's surrender. The things you said to me, the things you said about Caesar-I thought you'd gone mad, Papa. Quite literally, I thought the strains of the siege had driven you to distraction. Afterwards, Caesar said as much. 'Don't worry,' he told me, 'your father will come to his senses. Give him time.' But perhaps that was the moment I began to come to my senses.'
He paused, gathering strength to go on. 'Was I the one who changed? Or was it Caesar? Don't misunderstand me; he's still the greatest man I've ever encountered in this world. His intellect, his courage, his insight-he towers above the rest of us like a colossus. And yet…'
He fell silent for a long moment, then finally shrugged. 'It's me. I've simply lost my stomach for it. I've seen too much blood, too much suffering. There's a dream I have over and over, about a little village in Gaul, a tiny place, utterly insignificant compared to Rome or Alexandria, but not so insignificant that it could be ignored when it raised a challenge to Caesar. We circled the village and took them by surprise. There was a battle, quite short and simple as battles go. We slaughtered every man who dared to take up arms against us. Those who surrendered we put in chains. Then we rousted the women and children and the old people from their homes, and we burned the whole village to the ground. To set an example, you see. The survivors were sold as slaves, probably to other Gauls. That was how it worked in Gaul. Surrender and become a Roman subject; oppose us and become a slave. 'One must always give them a clear, simple choice,' Caesar told me. 'You are with Rome or against Rome; there is no middle ground.'
'But when I dream about that village, it's the face of one particular child I see, a little boy too young to fight, almost too young to understand what was happening. His father had been killed in the battle; his mother was mad with grief. The little boy didn't cry at all; he simply watched the house he'd grown up in as it was eaten by flames. To judge from the workshop attached to the house, the boy's father had been a smith. The boy would probably have grown up to be a smith, too, with a wife and children and a life in the village. But instead, he saw his father die and he was taken from his mother, to become a slave for the rest of his life. Whatever money his new master paid for him went to fund more campaigns against more villages in Gaul, so that more boys like him could be enslaved. In my dream, I see his face, blank and staring, with the light of the flames in his eyes.
'His village wasn't destroyed out of simple spite, of course. All that was done in Gaul was done for a greater purpose; so Caesar always told me. He has a grand vision. The whole world shall be unified under Rome, and Rome shall be unified under Caesar; but for that to happen, certain things must happen first. Gaul had to be pacified and brought under Rome's sway; and so it was done. When the Senate of Rome turned against Caesar, the senators had to be run out of Rome, and so it was done. When Pompey roused the opposition against Caesar, the opposition had to be destroyed; and so it was done. Now Caesar must decide what is to be done with Egypt, and who should rule it, and how best to bring it under his sway. And the glory of Caesar burns brighter than ever. I should be pleased, having done my part to bring all this about; but I have that dream, almost every night now. The fire burns, and the boy stares at the flames, numb with shock. In the great scheme of things it doesn't matter that he was enslaved; Rome shall rule the world, and Caesar shall rule Rome, and to make that happen, that boy's enslavement was one tiny necessity in a great chain of necessities.
'But sometimes… sometimes I wake with a mad thought in my head: What if that boy's life mattered as much as anyone else's, even Caesar's? What if I were offered a choice: to doom that boy to the misery of his fate, or to spare him, and by doing so, to wreck all Caesar's ambitions? I'm haunted by that thought-which is ridiculous! It's self-evident that Caesar matters infinitely more than that Gaulish boy; one stands poised to rule the world, and the other is a miserable slave, if he even still lives. Some men are great, others are insignificant, and it behooves those of us who are in-between to ally ourselves with the greatest and to despise the smallest. To even begin to imagine that the Gaulish boy matters as much as Caesar is to presume that some mystical quality resides in every man and makes his life equal to that of any other, and surely the lesson life teaches us is quite the opposite! In strength and intellect, men are anything but equal, and the gods lavish their attention on some more than on others. And yet…'
Meto bowed his head, and the rush of words came to a stop. I could see that his distress was genuine, and I was astounded at the course of his thoughts.
'Does Caesar ever harbor such doubts?'
Meto laughed bitterly. 'Caesar never questions his good fortune. He loves the gods, and the gods love him. Triumph is its own vindication. So long as a man is triumphant, he need never question his methods or his aims. Once upon a time, that philosophy was enough for me, but now…' He shook his head. 'Caesar forgets that old Greek word hubris.'
It was my turn to laugh. 'If Caesar hasn't provoked the gods' wrath before now, then surely-'
'But Caesar never presumed to imagine himself a god, before now.'
I looked at him keenly. 'What are you saying?'
