'Ever since we set sail for Egypt, he's kept bringing it up, jokingly at first. 'These Ptolemies don't merely live like gods,' he'd say, 'they are gods; I must see how they put their divinity into practice.' But it's not a joke, is it? With Pompey gone, the Senate made irrelevant, and all the legions united under him, Caesar will need to think long and hard about what it means to rule like a king, whether he calls himself one or not. The example of Alexander doesn't give much guidance; he died too young. It's the Ptolemies who provide the model for a long and successful dynasty, even if their glory has lately dwindled to the two decadent specimens currently vying to run the country.'
'You don't think much of King Ptolemy and his sister?'
'You saw that display by the queen tonight! She and her brother both seem to have the same idea: seduce the man to make an ally of the general.'
I frowned. 'Are you suggesting that young Ptolemy-' 'Is completely smitten by Caesar. It's rather pathetic, actually. You should see the fawning way he behaves when the two of them are together-the way he looks at Caesar, the hero worship in his eyes!'
I nodded, recalling Ptolemy's reaction when I told him that Cleopatra was alone with Caesar. 'I suppose Caesar must be immune to that sort of thing, having received the adulation of so many young men over the years.' Including a copious dose from you, Meto, I thought.
Meto scowled. 'You might think so, but with Ptolemy, it's different somehow. Caesar seems equally fascinated by him. His face lights up when Ptolemy comes into the room. They put their heads together, share private jokes, laugh, and give each other knowing glances. I can't understand it. It's certainly not because the boy's beautiful. He and his sister are both rather plain, if you ask me.' He snorted. 'Now we shall have both of them buzzing around him, like flies around a honey pot!'
I considered this revelation. If true, It wouldn't be the first time that Caesar had engaged in a royal romance. His erotic exploits as a young man in the court of King Nicomedes of Bithynia had become the stuff of legend, inspiring vicious gossip among his political rivals and ribald marching songs among Caesar's own men. (Their insatiable imperator was 'every woman's husband and every man's husband,' according to one refrain.) In the case of King Nicomedes, Caesar had been the younger paramour, and presumably the receptive partner (hence the resulting scandal and the soldiers' teasing, since a Roman male is never supposed to submit to another man, only to play the dominant role). With Caesar and Ptolemy, the roles presumably would be reversed, with Caesar the older, more worldly partner and Ptolemy the wide-eyed youth hungry for experience.
When poets sing of lovers, they celebrate Harmodias and Aristogiton, or Theseus and Ariadne. But lovers need not always be so evenly matched in beauty and youth. I thought of my own affair with Cassandra, a much younger woman, and I comprehended the spark of mutual desire that Caesar and the king might have ignited in one another. Despite all his worldly success, Caesar was at that age when even the most robust of men feel acutely the increasing frailty of their once-invincible bodies, and begin to look with envy (and yes, sometimes lust) upon the firm, vigorous bodies of men younger than themselves. Youth itself becomes an aphrodisiac to the man who no longer possesses it; youth coupled with reciprocal desire becomes irresistible.
To an outsider, such love affairs can appear absurd or demeaning-the doddering man of means hankering after some hapless slave boy. But this was a meeting of two extraordinary men. I thought of Ptolemy's combination of boyish enthusiasm and grave sense of purpose, self-assurance and naivete. I thought of Caesar's effortless sophistication and supreme confidence, and of his slightly ridiculous vanity, as betrayed by the way he combed his hair to cover his bald spot. Both were not merely men but rulers of men; and yet, not rulers only, but men as well, with appetites, frailties, uncertainties, needs; and not merely men and rulers, but-so they themselves appeared to believe-descendents and incarnations of divinity. Added to this was the fact that Ptolemy had lost his beloved father, and Caesar had never had a son. I could well imagine that Caesar and the king had something unique to offer one another, in a private realm far removed from the public arena of riches, arms, and diplomacy; that in a moment alone with each other, they might share an understanding inaccessible to the rest of us.
Why was Meto so scornful in conveying his suspicions? Had he been as intimate with Caesar as I had often been led to believe? Had that intimacy lessened, or ended altogether? Were his feelings about Caesar's dalliances with the royal siblings tinged with jealousy-and did that jealousy make his assumptions more reliable, or less?
I gave a start, as if waking from a dream. Meto and the way of life he had chosen to follow with Caesar were no longer my concern. Even if what he had just told me was true-that he himself had begun to doubt that way of life-still, it was of no consequence to me. So I told myself.
'You speak as if a gulf has opened between you and Caesar. Yet earlier tonight, I saw with my own eyes how the two of you got along-like the best of old friends, completely at ease. Almost like an old married couple, I daresay.'
'Did it look that way? Appearances can be deceiving.' He lowered his eyes, and suddenly I felt a stab of doubt. Had Meto grown cagey and dissimulating with Caesar, using the skills of deception that had become second nature to him to put on a face to the man he had once admired but now doubted? Or was I the one being fooled? For all I knew, Meto was still very much Caesar's trusted spy, and I was simply another source of information to be cultivated.
I stiffened my spine and hardened my heart. 'You've said what you had to say, and so have I. It's been a long day-too long and too eventful for an old man like me. I need my rest now. Go.'
Meto looked crestfallen. 'There's so much more I wanted to say. Perhaps… next time.'
I looked at him without blinking and gestured to the open door.
He gave each of the boys a hug, nodded curtly to Rupa, then turned to leave.
'Meto-wait a moment.'
He stopped in the doorway and turned back. 'As long as you're here-Rupa, would you pull the trunk closer to the bed? Open the lid, please.' Since we had settled in our rooms, I no longer kept the trunk locked. I sat on the bed and sorted through its contents.
'What are you looking for, Papa?' said Meto. 'Bethesda's things are here. She would have wanted you to have something… as a keepsake.'
I removed various items from the trunk, spreading them beside me on the bed to sort through them. I came across Bethesda's silver-and-ebony comb. My fingers trembled as I picked it up. Would it mean as much to Meto as it meant to me? Perhaps; but I could not bear to part with it. I would have to find something else to give him.
'What's that?' he asked.
'What?'
'There-that alabaster vial. Was it Bethesda's?'
'No.'
'Are you sure? It looks like the sort of thing in which she might have kept a perfume. To be able to smell her scent again-I'd like that.'
'That vial was not Bethesda's!'
'You needn't speak so harshly.'
I sighed. 'The vial was given to me by Cornelia.'
He frowned. 'Pompey's wife?'
'Yes. The whole story is too complicated to recount, but believe me, that vial does not contain perfume.'
'Poison?'
I looked at him sharply. 'Caesar has indeed taught you to think like a spy.'
He shook his head gravely. 'Some things I learned from you, Papa, whether you like it or not, and a penchant for deduction is one of them. If not perfume, what else would a woman like Cornelia carry in a vial like that? And if she gave it to you…'
'She didn't hire me to assassinate someone, if that's what you're thinking.'
'I was thinking that she gave it to you out of mercy, or perhaps simple convenience-to spare you a more violent death. The poison was intended for you, wasn't it, Papa?'
I almost smiled; his cleverness pleased me, in spite of myself. 'It's something called Nemesis-in-a-bottle, quick and relatively painless, or so Cornelia told me. She claimed it was her personal supply, for her own use if the need should arise.'
'Poor Cornelia! She must be missing it now.'
'Perhaps, but I doubt it. Cornelia survived Publius Crassus. She survived Pompey. She'll probably survive yet another ill-starred husband.'
