In the dim light I saw the veiled form of Cydimache move closer to her husband on the couch they shared, not quite touching him, as if to give comfort simply by drawing near. Did Apollonides, seated across from them, scowl? His gray silhouette sat upright, arms crossed, shoulders stiff, jaw thrust out.
Zeno went on, his words low but clear. Occasionally, when his voice grew thick with emotion, he swallowed and pressed on. 'The things I saw today! Blood-fire-death… There were-there were two Romans-identical-they must have been twins. They were on a Roman galley that was trying to draw alongside and board us. The Romans cast grappling hooks at us, but the hooks fell short. They kept trying to close the distance. We kept maneuvering away. Their men outnumbered ours; they'd have overwhelmed us. Our only hope was to draw far enough away to use our catapults against them, or, if we could, swing into ramming position. But the Roman captain kept after us like a hound after a bitch. At one point they drew so close that some of their men jumped aboard. Only a handful- eight or ten-not nearly enough to take command of the ship. Such braveness, almost madness! They did it for glory, you see. If the Romans finally did manage to catch us with grappling hooks and swarm over us, these men could have boasted that they were the first aboard.
'Leading these Romans who jumped on board were two twins. I saw them that close, close enough to see that they were absolutely identical. It was unnerving, like a vision, like some prodigy sent by the gods to confound us. Confusion kills a man faster than anything else in battle. One instant of uncertainty-a blink, a glance from face to face, another blink-and you're dead! They were young, these two, young and handsome, both grinning and yelling and cutting the air with their swords.
'But one of them was careless. He stepped too far ahead of his companions, exposed himself to an attack from the side. One of my men surprised him with a chopping blow-sliced the Roman's right hand clean off, the hand that was clutching his sword. The Roman never stop grinning! No, that's not exactly true; his grin turned into something else, but it was still a kind of grin, ghastly, frozen on his face. Blood spurted from his severed wrist. He stared at it, dumbfounded, but still with that mad grin. You'd think that would have been the end of him, but he didn't even stagger. Do you know what he did? He bent over, reached down with his left hand, and picked up the sword that was still in the grip of his severed right hand. It's unbelievable, I know, but I saw it! He managed to get hold of the sword, and then he stood up and continued to fight. He was shielding his brother, protecting him, being completely careless of his own safety. He must have known that it was over for him; he'd never survive the loss of so much blood. He swung both arms recklessly-swung his sword, swung the severed wrist from which blood spurted in great jets.
'My men fell back, horrified, sickened by the spray of blood. I managed to rally them and together we rushed him. The Roman raised his left arm high in the air. His sword was poised to come down on my skull. I thought in that instant I would surely die-but he never managed to bring down his sword. One of my men came up from the side and delivered a two-handed blow that lopped off the Roman's left arm at the elbow. The blood! The sight of him-!'
For a long moment Zeno paused. Everyone in earshot had fallen silent to listen. Cydimache moved closer to him but did not touch him. Zeno shuddered and gasped, then drew a deep breath and went on.
'His severed left wrist was still gushing blood. His severed right elbow was pouring out gore. Horrible! And still he didn't fall. He stood upright and screamed a single word through his clenched teeth. Do you know what it was? `Caesar!' Not the name of his mother. Not the name of his twin. Not the name of a god, but `Caesar!' His brother joined him, and then the other Romans, until they were all screaming the name of Caesar as if it were a curse upon us.
'We had them now, you see. Our ship had managed to pull clear from the Roman galley. The Romans on board were stranded. My men had rallied. We greatly outnumbered them. The Romans had no hope. But still the wounded Roman-armless, handless-still he protected his brother. He screamed the name of Caesar and threw himself against us, thrashing this way and that, using his mutilated body itself as a weapon. It was uncanny, monstrous, like something from a nightmare.
'For a moment… for a moment I panicked. I thought: This is end of us. This is all it will take. These ten Romans, if they're all like this one, these ten alone will be able to kill us all and seize control of the ship. They're not men, they're demons!
'But they were only men, of course, and they died like men. They might have leaped into the sea to save themselves, tried to swim back to their ship or to some other Roman vessel, but instead they stood their ground and fought. The mutilated Roman finally fell. We stabbed him all over. The wounds hardly bled, he had lost so much blood already. His face was as white as a cloud. He was still grinning that horrible grin when his eyes rolled back in his head and he crumpled to the deck.
'His twin cried `Caesar!' and threw himself against us, weeping. He was mad with grief, careless. I stabbed him in the belly, then the throat. I was shocked at how easily he died. The rest of the Romans… were harder to kill. They took two Massilians for every Roman. Even after they were all dead, and we had thrown their bodies into the sea, they kept on killing us. Their blood itself killed us! The deck was so slippery with the stuff that one of my men- the one who'd landed the first blow that severed the Roman's wrist-fell and broke his neck. He died instantly, flat on his back, his neck twisted, his eyes wide open, staring at the heavens.'
Complete silence had fallen over the garden. The guests in the farthest corners had ceased conversing, and the slaves bearing trays beneath the colonnade had stopped to listen. Even the Artemis who stood in the dry fountain seemed to pause and listen, her bow frozen in her hands and her head tilted slightly to one side.
Cydimache moved closer to her husband. Zeno, his head bowed, reached out and laid his hand gently on her cloaked arm, as if she were the one who needed comforting.
Apollonides sat motionless, aware of the sudden, utter silence and of the spell that Zeno's words had cast over everyone. 'A bad day for Massilia,' he finally said, his voice almost a whisper.
Zeno let out a bitter laugh. 'A bad day, father-in-law? Is that all you can say? It's nothing compared to the days to come!'
'Lower your voice, Zeno.'
'Why, First Timouchos? Do you imagine there are spies among us?'
'Zeno!'
'The fact is, this is all your fault, you and the others who voted to side with Pompey against Caesar. I warned you! I told you-'
'Quiet, Zeno! That question was argued at the proper place and time. A decision was made-'
'By a group of half-witted old misers who couldn't see the future when it slapped them in the face. We should never have closed our gates to Caesar! When he came to us, seeking our help and promising his protection, we should have opened them wide and welcomed him in.'
'No! Massilia has always been loyal to Rome. Nothing has changed that and nothing ever will. Pompey and the Senate are Rome, not Caesar. Caesar is a usurper, a traitor, a-'
'Caesar is the future, father-in-law! When you spurned him, that's what you turned your back on. Now Massilia has no future, thanks to you.'
Cydimache laid her hand upon Zeno's arm, either to comfort him or restrain him, or both.
At this gesture of wifely devotion, Apollonides bridled. 'Daughter! How can you sit there and listen to this man when he speaks to your father in such a way?'
Cydimache made no answer. I peered at her cloaked figure in the dim light. It seemed to me that she was like an oracle that would not speak-obscure, mysterious, in this world but not entirely of it. I could see nothing at all of her deformed face or body, yet her posture spoke undeniably of torn loyalties and heartbreaking grief-or did I only imagine this, misreading the silhouette of a veiled hunchback?
Zeno extricated himself from her touch-not brusquely, but tenderly-and stood. 'All I know, father-in-law, is that while I was out there today, watching our ships go up in flames or crack apart and vanish in the waves, I didn't hear men yelling your name, or Pompey's name, or `For the Timouchoi!' I heard men crying `Caesar!' They screamed his name as they killed, and they screamed it as they died. And the men crying `Caesar!' were the men who won the battle. I expect they shall be crying `Caesar!' when they bring down the walls of Massilia. `Caesar!' will be the name we hear as they cut our throats, and `Caesar!' will be in the ears of our wives and daughters when they're stripped and taped and carried off to be slaves.'
This was too much for many of the listeners. There were gasps, grunts, cries of 'Shame!' and 'Hubris!'
Even in the dim light, I could see that Apollonides trembled with fury. 'Go!' he whispered hoarsely.
