the son of their own ruler? Should they not be impressed that Caesar had coupled with a woman who was the living heir of Alexander the Great, the latest representative of the world's most venerable dynasty, and the incarnation of a goddess?
I could also imagine why Caesar had balked at the idea. An open declaration of dynastic intentions was still too radical for the Roman people to accept, and an Egyptian queen of Greek blood, however regal, was still a foreigner, and an unsuitable mother for the children of a Roman noble. It might also be that Caesar had other plans for the future, and intended for someone other than Caesarion to be his heir.
For whatever reason, Caesar had refused to acknowledge Caesarion. Despite the opportunity presented by his Egyptian Triumph, Cleopatra had been thwarted. What now were her feelings toward Caesar?
It occurred to me that Caesar dead might now be more valuable to her than Caesar alive. The assassination of Caesar would plunge Rome into confusion, perhaps even another civil war. Amid the wreckage and the chaos, might Egypt drive out the Roman garrisons and cast off the Roman yoke?
Weighed against demands of state and her own ambition, any personal feelings she still harbored for Caesar might count for nothing. Cleopatra came from a long line of cold-blooded crocodiles who were notorious for devouring their own. Her older sister, Berenice, had usurped their father; when he regained the upper hand, their father put Berenice to death. Cleopatra had not shed a tear when her brother perished in their civil war. She now seemed to be looking forward to the impending humiliation and execution of her younger sister with grim satisfaction.
Was Cleopatra capable of plotting Caesar's death? Did she have sufficient motive to do so? I looked into her eyes and shivered, despite the stifling heat of the day.
XI
Unlike Vercingetorix, Arsinoe and Ganymedes were not being held in the Tullianum, but if all went according to plan, they would both end up there tomorrow, to be dispatched by the executioner.
Their quarters were located in the vast new complex housing Pompey's Theater on the Field of Mars. Calpurnia's messenger had given me instructions on how to find the place, but, wending our way among the shops and arcades and meeting halls, Rupa and I became completely turned around and found ourselves in the theater itself, with its countless semicircular tiers of seats surmounted by a temple to Venus. On the stage, a play was being rehearsed, no doubt one of the many scheduled to be performed as part of the ongoing festival that would follow Caesar's fourth and final triumph. Dramas, comedies, athletic competitions, chariot races in the newly expanded Circus Maximus, and mock battles on the training grounds of the Field of Mars-all this and much more had been announced. After so many months of deprivation and dread, Caesar intended to give the people of Rome a prolonged series of holidays full of feasting and every kind of public entertainment.
I regained my bearings and found the dedicated stairwell that led up, up, up to the topmost floor of the theater. Rupa and I came to a heavily guarded door, where I showed my pass. I expected Rupa to be kept behind, but, perhaps carelessly, the guards allowed us both to enter.
I never knew such a place existed-a private suite located behind the highest tier of seats and just beneath the Temple of Venus. Perhaps Pompey had built this aerie to be his personal hideaway, but its seclusion and limited access made it an ideal place to lock someone away. Its proximity to the Field of Mars, where Caesar's troops would muster for the triumph, would allow quick and secure delivery of the prisoners to their place in the procession.
The spacious room was sparsely but tastefully appointed, lit by windows along one wall. There was even a balcony with an expansive view of rooftops below and the winding Tiber and rolling hills beyond. The balcony was much too high to offer any means of escape.
Apparently, the princess had been allowed at least one servant while in captivity. An unusually tall, plain- faced lady-in-waiting appeared, wearing a shimmering robe with wide sleeves and a khat headdress that gathered her hair into a kind of pillow behind her head. She wore no makeup except for a few lines of kohl around her eyes.
'Who are you?' she said sharply, eyeing me with disdain and Rupa with something closer to alarm. Perhaps I looked sufficiently resolute and Rupa sufficiently brawny to pass for public executioners.
'You've nothing to fear from us,' I said.
'Are you Romans?'
'Yes.'
'Then my princess can expect nothing good from you.'
'I assure you, we wish her no harm. My name is Gordianus. This is my son Rupa, who does not speak.'
'I presume you come from Caesar? No one gets past those guards, unless they're sent by the king-killer himself.' Obviously, her view of Caesar differed from that of Cleopatra; he was not the peacemaker who restored the throne to its rightful occupant but the man who had murdered one monarch, young Ptolemy, and was about to murder another.
'But that's not quite true, is it?' I said. 'You've had at least one visitor who was not sent by Caesar, who gained admittance on his own initiative, to satisfy his curiosity and to show his sympathy, I imagine. I speak of my friend Hieronymus.'
Her whole bearing changed. The stiff shoulders relaxed. The deep wrinkles of her face recombined into a smile. Her eyes sparkled. She clapped her bony hands together.
'Ah, Hieronymus! Your friend, you say? Then tell me, how is that charming fellow?'
I was struck by two things: the household of Arsinoe was ignorant of Hieronymus's death, and the lady before me was infatuated with him. Why not? She looked to be about the same age as Hieronymus. Indeed, with her long neck and narrow, homely features, she might have been his female counterpart.
'I'm afraid that's why I've come. I have some bad news for your mistress.'
She responded with a guttural, very unladylike laugh. 'Bad news? On this of all days, the day before- What news could possibly qualify as 'bad,' considering the fate that hangs over the princess?' She shook her head and glowered at me-setting the wrinkles into a new configuration-then suddenly raised her eyebrows and gasped. 'Oh, no! You don't mean that something has happened to Hieronymus? Not dear Hieronymus, of all people?'
'I'm afraid so. But I would prefer to deliver the news directly to your mistress. Or perhaps to her minister, Ganymedes-'
Even as I said the name, so did someone else who had just entered the room. Over the lady's shoulder, stepping toward us through a doorway, I saw the princess Arsinoe.
'Ganymedes!' She was saying. 'Ganymedes, who's that at the door? What do they want?'
I stared at the lady-in-waiting. I blinked. In an instant, the illusion created by my own assumptions melted away. I looked at the bony hands; the flesh was soft and had never known physical labor, but they were not a woman's hands. I looked at the throat and detected the telltale bump, like a tiny apple. I looked at the plain, wrinkled face and wondered how I could have been mistaken. The lady was no lady. It was Ganymedes the eunuch who stood before me.
Arsinoe was allowed no servants, after all. She and her minister were the only inhabitants of the suite. No wonder the princess was so simply attired, since there was no one to dress her. Her long, shimmering robe was not much more elaborate than that worn by Ganymedes. Having no one to wash and set her hair, she concealed it inside a striped nemes headdress made of stiff cloth, which covered her brow and hung in lappets on either side, framing her plump, round face. Short and voluptuously built like her sister, Arsinoe had put on weight in captivity.
Ganymedes did not look starved either. A potbelly interrupted the otherwise straight line of his robe. Except for the nervous glint in their eyes, they looked like two bored house-guests who had nothing to do but eat all day.
Perhaps because neither was truly a warrior, it had not been thought necessary to reduce them by torture and starvation to a wretched state of near collapse. Or perhaps the lack of ill-treatment was on account of their genders. No princess had ever been paraded to her death in Rome before, and I do not think a eunuch had ever been paraded in a triumph, either. The organizer of the triumph (perhaps Caesar himself) may have considered the
