thinking, Gordianus?'
'Davus and I wanted to watch the fleet sail out,' I said blandly. 'The walls were very crowded. The Sacrifice Rock seemed to offer the best vantage point.'
'You knew it was forbidden.'
'Can a visitor be expected to remember every local custom?' Domitius took this fiction for what it was worth and snorted cynically. 'You can climb up the Sacrifice Rock and take a piss off it for all I care. Better yet, take a leap into the sea. It's probably the only way to get out of this godforsaken place.' He held up his empty cup. A slave appeared from the shadows and refilled it. 'Only thing they seemed to have stockpiled in adequate amounts-good Italian wine. And slaves to pour it. What a wretched little town this is!' He made no effort to lower his voice. I looked about. Guests were still arriving. The mood of the place was somber and the conversations quiet. Quite a few heads turned our way in response to Domitius's outburst.
'If you're not careful,' I said quietly, 'your own tongue shall cause you more embarrassment than I ever could.'
He laughed bitterly. 'I'm a Roman, Gordianus. I have no manners and no fear. That's how we've managed to conquer the world. How some of us have managed to conquer it, anyway. Ah, but here's another glorious loser- Milo! Over here!'
Out of the shadowy crowd Milo appeared, looking as glum and bleary-eyed as Domitius. He dropped onto the couch next to Domitius and snapped his fingers. When the slave brought more wine, I declined; it seemed a night to keep my wits about me.
The garden was a square surrounded by a colonnade. In the center there was a dry fountain with a conventional statue of Artemis. Couches were gathered in U-shapes, alternately facing in or out from the center so that in rows they formed a sort of Greek key pattern of the type one often sees along the hem of a chiton. In this way guests faced in all four directions and there was no true center or focus; the layout also made it possible to overhear conversations from parties that were nearby but faced another direction. Our immediate vicinity seemed to be reserved for Romans. I heard the low murmur of Latin all around. Looking over his shoulder at me from a nearby couch, I saw Gaius Verres, who had the temerity to wink at me.
The guests included both sexes, though men greatly outnumbered women. The women, I noticed, following Massilian custom and in marked contrast to Rome, took no wine.
Apollonides and his retinue were the last to arrive. Everyone stood (some, like Domitius and Milo, not steadily) in deference to the First Timouchos. The grim-faced men surrounding Apollonides I took to be his closet advisors. Also in the party was a young couple. I had heard much about them. Now at last I saw them together: Apollonides's only child, Cydimache, and her husband, Zeno.
The girl wore a voluminous gown made of fine material shot through with gold and silver threads. The colorful veils that hid her face were of some gossamer stuff. On another woman such expensive and elaborate clothing might have made one think of wealth and privilege, but on Cydimache they seemed a sort of costume meant to distract curious onlookers from the misshapen, hunchbacked form within. Even her hands were concealed. Without a single, recognizable human feature for the eye to connect to, one might almost imagine that some bizarre animal had entered our midst beneath those mounds of veils.
She shambled slowly along with an uneven gait. The rest of the party checked their strides so as not to get too far ahead of her. There was something profoundly unsettling about the sight of that little retinue headed by the most powerful man in Massilia, towering, big-jawed Apollonides, held back by the twisted form of Cydimache. The moment seemed supremely strange; I realized that I had never before seen such a misshapen mortal in such a context, finely dressed and dining in a place of honor among the rich and powerful. One only ever sees such wretched creatures wearing tags, sleeping in gutters, and begging in the poorer parts of town. No one knows where they come from; no one can imagine how they continue to exist. Respectable Roman families would never allow such a monster to live, or if they did, would hide it away and never be seen with it in public. But to become a Timouchos required offspring, and Cydimache had been Apollonides's only
child; he could not deny her. It might even be, as Milo said, that Apollonides loved her, as any man might love his only daughter. I thought of my own daughter in Rome-Diana, so bright and beautiful-and felt pity for Apollonides.
And what of the young man who walked beside Cydimache, solicitously holding her arm, though his support did nothing to straighten her crooked gait? I had heard that Zeno was handsome, and he was. He had the kind of dark, brooding good looks that one associates with wild young poets. His dark hair was disheveled and his eyes had a haunted look. He had removed his battle armor but still wore his light blue officer's cape. Something in his defeated posture played upon my memory, and I suddenly realized that he must be the officer I had seen that afternoon on the sole returning ship, standing alone on the prow and facing away from the spectators on the city walls.
I noticed something else about him. It was not immediately apparent because the uneven gait of Cydimache was so much more pronounced, but Zeno, too, was limping slightly, favoring his left leg.
XVII
There were no speeches to start the evening, not even a welcome from Apollonides. Had the day turned out differently-had Massilia scored a great victory-everyone would have been happy to listen to speeches and toasts that reiterated to infinity what everyone already knew; boasting and gloating would have been not just permissible but imperative. Instead, what had been planned as a celebration felt more like a funeral, but even at a funeral the guests might have been more cheerful.
I had wondered how Apollonides planned to mount a banquet when the city was facing famine. The ingenuity of his cooks was commendable. I had never seen such exquisitely prepared and presented food served in such tiny portions or in courses spaced so far apart. In any other circumstance it would have been laughable to be served a course consisting of a single olive (and not even a large one) garnished with a small sprig of fennel. This was presented on a tiny silver plate, perhaps intended to trick the eye into perceiving a double image. Milo grunted and quipped, 'So what do you think of the new Massilian cuisine, Gordianus? I can't see it catching on in Rome.' No one laughed. The dining couch I shared with Davus was placed in such a way that if I looked past Domitius and Milo I could see the nearby U-shaped array of couches where Apollonides and his party were disposed. Because of the dim lighting, I could hardly see their faces, much less read their expressions, but even their vague silhouettes were a study in dejection. When there was a lull in the murmur of Latin around me, I could overhear their conversation. Increasingly, as more wine was served, I heard one strong, ringing voice above the others. It was the voice of Zeno.
Meanwhile, Domitius and Milo kept up a rancorous, rambling conversation. It turned out that the Roman in charge of the so-called relief fleet was a certain Lucius Nasidius. I didn't know him, but they did, and had strong opinions to express. Neither Domitius nor Milo was surprised that the fellow had hung back from the battle and then turned tail when he saw the day going badly for the Massilians; either of them could have told Pompey never to dispatch a shirker like Nasidius on such a critical mission; this disaster was merely the latest in a unending stream of bad decisions by Pompey; if only one of them had been in charge of that fleet… and so on.
Occasionally Domitius or Milo tried to draw me into their exchange. I answered absentmindedly, straining my ears to pick up the conversation from Apollonides's little group. From the bits I was able to overhear, my suspicion was confirmed: Zeno had commanded the ship that sailed back with news of the crushing defeat. As Zeno began to talk about the battle, the murmur of Latin around me died down. Even Domitius and Milo fell silent. They kept their eyes straight ahead, but like everyone else within earshot, they began to eavesdrop.
'They don't fight like ordinary men,' Zeno was saying. 'And upon what vast reservoir of experience do you base that observation, son-in-law?' asked Apollonides sharply. 'How many battles have you fought in?'
'I fought in this one! And if you'd been there, you'd know what I mean. There was something almost supernatural about them. One always hears talk about the gods overseeing battles, lifting up fallen warriors, urging them on; but I don't think it was the gods out there on the water today, driving the victors. It was Caesar; the inspiration of Caesar. They shout his name to keep up each other's spirits, to shame the laggards, to frighten their enemies. I saw things today I never would have believed, the sort of things you hear in songs. Terrible things…
