'Yes, and the song was sweet and the cloth was cool. But I still can't sleep. Neither can you. So tell me a story.'
She touched the back of her hand to her lips and yawned. Her black hair glistened in the starlight. Her linen sleeping gown clung like gossamer to the supple lines of her body. Even yawning, she was beautiful-far too beautiful a slave to be owned by a common man like myself, I've often thought. Fortune smiled on me when I found her in that Alexandrian slave market ten years ago. Was it I who selected Bethesda, or she who selected me?
'Why don't you tell a story?' Bethesda suggested. 'You love to talk about your work.'
'Now you're wanting me to put you to sleep. You always find it boring when I talk about my work.'
'Not true,' she protested sleepily. 'Tell me again how you helped Cicero in resolving the matter of the Woman of Arretium. Everyone down at the market still talks about it, how Gordianus the Finder must be the cleverest man in Rome to have found the solution to such a sordid affair.'
'What a schemer you are, Bethesda, thinking you can flatter me into being your storyteller. You are my slave and I order you to tell me a story!'
She ignored me. 'Or tell me again about the case of Sextus Roscius,' she said. 'Before that, great Cicero had never defended a man charged with murder, much less a man accused of killing his own father. How he needed the help of Gordianus the Finder! To think it would end with you killing a giant who came out of the Cloaca Maxima while Cicero was giving his speech in the Forum!'
'I would hate to have you for my biographer, Bethesda. The man was not exactly a giant, it was not exactly I who killed him, and while it happened in the public latrine behind the Shrine of Venus, the giant-that is, the man-did not come out of the sewer. And it wasn't the end of the affair, either!'
We lay for a long moment in the darkness, listening to the chirring of the crickets. A shooting star passed overhead, causing Bethesda to mutter a low incantation to one of her strange Egyptian animal-gods.
'Tell me about Egypt,' I said. 'You never talk about Alexandria. It's such a great city. So old. So mysterious.'
'Ha! You Romans think anything is old if it came before your empire. Alexander and his city were not even a dream in the mind of Osiris when Cheops built his great pyramid. Memphis and Thebes were already ancient when the Greeks went to war with Troy.'
'Over a woman,' I commented.
'Which shows that they were not completely stupid. Of course they were idiots to think that Helen was hiding in Troy, when she was actually down in Memphis with King Proteus the whole time.'
'What? I never heard such a thing!'
'Everyone in Egypt knows the story.'
'But that would mean that the destruction of Troy was meaningless. And since it was the Trojan warrior Aeneas who fled Troy and founded the Roman race, then the destiny of Rome is based on a cruel joke of the gods. I suggest you keep this particular story to yourself, Bethesda, and not go spreading it around the market.'
'Too late for that.' Even in the darkness, I could see the wicked smile on her lips.
We lay in silence for some moments. A gentle breeze stirred amid the roses. Bethesda finally said, 'You know, men such as you are not the only ones who can solve mysteries and answer riddles.'
'You mean the gods can do so as well?'
'No, I mean that women can.'
'Is that a fact?'
'Yes. Thinking about Helen in Egypt reminded me of the story of King Rhampsinitus and his treasure house, and how it was a women who solved the mystery of the disappearing silver. But I suppose you must already know that story, Master, since it is so very famous.'
'King Rhampsi-what?' I asked.
Bethesda snorted delicately. She finds it difficult sometimes, living in a place as culturally backward as Rome. I smiled up at the stars and closed my eyes. 'Bethesda, I order you to tell me the tale of King Rhampsi-whatever and his treasure house.'
'Very well, Master. King Rhampsinitus came after King Proteus (who played host to Helen), and before King Cheops.'
'Who built the great pyramid. Cheops must have been a very great king.'
'An awful king, the most hated man in all the long history of Egypt.'
'But why?'
'Precisely because he built the great pyramid. What does a pyramid mean to common people, except unending labor and terrible taxes? The memory of Cheops is despised in Egypt; Egyptians spit when they say his name. Only visitors from Rome and Greece look at his pyramid and see something wonderful. An Egyptian looks at the pyramid and says, 'Look, there's the stone that broke my great-great-great-great-grandfather's back,' or, 'There's the ornamental pylon that bankrupted my great-great-great-great-granduncle's farm.' No, King Rhampsinitus was much more to the people's liking.'
'And what was this Rhampsinitus like?'
'Very rich. No king in any kingdom since has been even half so rich.'
'Not even Midas?'
'Not even him. King Rhampsinitus had great wealth in precious stones and gold, but his greatest treasure was his silver. He owned plates of silver and goblets of silver, silver coins and mirrors and bracelets and whole bricks made of pure, solid, shining silver. There was so much of it that he decided to built a treasure house just for his silver.
'So the king hired a man to design and build this treasure house in a courtyard outside his bedchamber, incorporating it into the wall that surrounded his palace. The project took several years to complete, as the wall was hollowed out and the massive stones were cut and polished and hoisted into place. The architect was a man of strong mind but frail health, and though he was only of middle age he barely lived long enough to see his design completed. On the very day that the great silver hoard was moved piece by piece into the chamber and the great doors were closed and sealed, the architect died. He left behind a widow and two sons who had just come into manhood. King Rhampsinitus called the sons before him and gave each of them a silver bracelet in token of his gratitude to their father.'
'A rather small gift,' I said.
'Perhaps. They say that King Rhampsinitus was prudent and evenhanded to a fault, neither tightfisted nor overly generous.'
'He reminds me of Cicero.'
Bethesda cleared her throat, demanding silence. 'Once a month the king would have the seals broken away and would spend an afternoon in his treasure house, admiring his silver wares and counting his silver coins. Months passed; the Nile flooded and receded, as happens every summer, and the crops were good. The people were happy. Egypt was at peace.
'But the king began to notice something quite disturbing: pieces of silver were missing from his treasure house. At first he thought he only imagined it, since there was no way that the great doors could be opened without breaking the seals, and the seals were broken only for his own official visits. But when his servants tallied up the inventory of his silver, sure enough, there were a great number of coins missing, and other small items as well.
'The king was sorely puzzled. On his next visit there was even more silver missing, including a solid silver crocodile the size of a man's forearm, which had been one of the king's most treasured pieces.
'The king was furious, and more baffled than ever. Then it occurred to him to set traps inside the treasure house, so that anyone sorting through the coins and coffers might be caught and held fast in an iron cage. And this he did.
'Sure enough, on his next visit, the king discovered that one of the traps had been sprung. But inside the cage, instead of a desperate, pleading thief, there was a dead body.' Bethesda paused ominously.
'But of course,' I murmured, looking up sleepily at the stars. 'The poor thief had starved, or else been frightened to death when the cage landed on him.'
'Perhaps. But he had no head!'
'What?' I blinked.
'His head was nowhere to be found.'
