They were all in motion, taking advantage of an onshore breeze to draw closer to the coast.
The captain saw me and approached. 'Get a good night's sleep?' he asked. 'I figured you needed it. Didn't have the heart to wake you.'
'What's happening?'
'I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect it has something to do with them.' He pointed toward the shore. Where on the previous day the beach had been a featureless smear of brown lacking any sign of life, this morning it was thronged with a great multitude of soldiers arrayed in formal ranks, their spears casting long shadows and their armor gleaming in the slanting, early-morning sunlight, the plumes atop their helmets appearing to shiver as the leaves of certain trees shiver in the slightest wind. Brightly colored pavilions with streaming pennants had been erected atop the low hills. The largest and most impressive of these pavilions was at the center of the host atop the highest of the hills. Beneath its canopy a throne sat atop a dais-a shimmering chair made of gold ornamented with jewels and worthy to seat a king. At the moment the throne was vacant, and though I squinted, I could not see beyond it into the royal tent.
'King Ptolemy's army,' said the captain.
'And the boy-king himself, if that throne is any indication. He's come to parlay with Pompey.'
'Some of those soldiers are outfitted like Romans.'
'So they are,' I said. 'A Roman legion was garrisoned here seven years ago, to help the late king Ptolemy hold his throne and keep the peace. Some of those soldiers once served under Pompey, as I recall. They say the Romans stationed here have gone native, taking Egyptian wives and forgetting Roman ways. But they won't have forgotten Pompey. He's counting on them to rally to his side.'
The captain, receiving a signal from a nearby ship, called to his men to raise their oars. The fleet had drawn as close to the shore as the shallow water would permit. I turned my eyes toward Pompey's galley and felt my heart sink. The small skiff that had transported me the previous day was headed toward us.
The skiff drew alongside. Centurion Macro did not speak, but merely cocked his head and motioned for me to board.
The captain spoke in my ear. 'I hear the others stirring,' he said. 'Shall I wake them?'
I looked at the cabin door. 'No. I said my farewells yesterday… and last night.'
I descended the rope ladder. Spots swam before my eyes, and my heart began to race. I tried to remember that a Roman's dignity never matters so much as in the moment of his death, and that the substance of a man's life is summed up in the manner in which he faces his end. Stepping into the skiff, I stumbled and caused the boat to rock. Centurion Macro gripped my arm to steady me. None of the rowers smiled or sniggered; instead, they averted their eyes and mumbled prayers to ward off the misfortune portended by such a bad omen.
As we rowed toward Pompey's galley, I was determined to not look back. With that uncanny acumen a man gains over the years, I felt eyes on my back, yet still I kept my gaze straight ahead. But as we pulled alongside the galley, I could not resist a final glance over my shoulder. Quite tiny in the distance, I saw them all standing along the rail-not only the captain and all his sailors, but Rupa, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and the boys wearing only the loincloths they slept in, and Bethesda in her sleeping gown. At the sight of me looking back, she raised her hands and covered her face.
Centurion Macro escorted me aboard. A crowd of officers had gathered at the prow of the galley, clustered around Pompey himself, to judge from the magnificent purple plume that bristled atop the helmet of the man at the middle of the group, who was hidden by the surrounding throng. I swallowed hard and braced myself to face Pompey, but the centurion gripped my elbow and steered me in the opposite direction, toward the cabin where I had been received the previous day. He rapped on the cabin door. Cornelia herself opened it.
'Come inside, Finder,' she said, keeping her voice low. She closed the door behind me.
The room was stuffy from the smoke of burning lamp oil. Against one wall, the coverlet on the bed that Pompey and his wife presumably shared was pulled down and rumpled on one side but untouched on the other.
'You slept well last night?' I said.
She raised an eyebrow. 'Well enough, considering.'
'But the Great One never went to bed at all.'
She followed my gaze to the half-made bed. 'My husband told me you're good at noticing such details.'
'A bad habit I can't seem to break. I used to make my living by it. These days it only seems to get me into trouble.'
'All virtues turn at last to vices, if one lives long enough. My husband is a prime example of that.'
'Is he?'
'When I first married him, he was no longer young, but he was nonetheless still brash, fearless, supremely confident that the gods were on his side. Those virtues had earned him a lifetime of victories, and his victories earned him the right to call himself Great and to demand that others address him thusly. But brashness can turn to arrogance, fearlessness to foolhardiness, and confidence can become that vice the Greeks call hubris-an overweening pride that tempts the gods to strike a man down.'
'All this is by way of explaining what happened at Pharsalus, I presume?'
She blanched, as Pompey had done the previous day when I said too much. 'You're quite capable of hubris yourself, Finder.'
'Is it hubris to speak the truth to a fellow mortal? Pompey's not a god. Neither are you. To stand up to either of you gives no insult to heaven.'
She breathed in through dilated nostrils, fixing me with a catlike stare. At last she blinked and lowered her eyes. 'Do you know what day this is?'
'The date? Three days before the kalends of October, unless I've lost track.'
'It's my husband's birthday-and the anniversary of his great triumphal parade in Rome thirteen years ago. He had destroyed the pirates who infested the seas; he had crushed Sertorius in Spain and the Marian rebels in Africa; he had subjugated King Mithridates and a host of lesser potentates in Asia. With all those victories behind him, he returned to Rome as Pompey the Great, invincible on land and sea. He rode through the city in a gem-encrusted chariot, followed by an entourage of Asian princes and princesses and a gigantic portrait of himself made entirely of pearls. Caesar was nothing in those days. Pompey had no rivals. He might have made himself king of Rome. He chose instead to respect the institutions of his ancestors. It was the greatest day of his life. We always celebrate with a special dinner on this date, to commemorate the anniversary of that triumph. Perhaps tonight, if all goes well…'
She shook her head. 'Somehow we strayed from your original observation, that my husband passed yet another night without sleep. He's hardly slept at all since Pharsalus. He sits there at his worktable, yelling for slaves to come refill the oil in the lamp, poring over that stack of documents, sorting bits of parchment, scratching out names, scribbling notes-and all for nothing! Do you know what's in that pile? Provision lists for troops that no longer exist, advancement recommendations for officers who were left to rot in the Greek sun, logistical notes for battles that will never be fought. To go without sleep unhinges a man; it throws the four humors inside him out of balance.'
'Earth, air, fire, and water,' I said.
Cornelia shook her head. 'There's nothing but fire inside him now. He scorches everyone he touches. He shall burn himself out. There'll be no more Pompey the Great, only a charred husk of flesh that was once a man.'
'But he lives in hope. This meeting with King Ptolemy-'
'As if Egypt could save us!'
'Could it not? All the wealth of the Nile; the armed might of the Egyptian army, along with the old Roman garrison that's posted here; a safe haven for the forces scattered at Pharsalus to regroup, along with Pompey's remaining allies in Africa.'
'Yes, perhaps… perhaps the situation is not entirely hopeless-provided that King Ptolemy takes our side.'
'Why should he not?'
She shrugged. 'The king is hardly more than a boy; he's only fifteen. Who knows what those half-Egyptian, half-Greek eunuchs who advise him are thinking? Egypt has managed to maintain its independence this long only by playing Roman against Roman. Take sides with Pompey now, and the die is cast; once the fighting is over, Egypt will belong to Pompey… or else to Pompey's rival… and Egypt will no longer be Egypt but just another Roman
