The judgement of Caesar rsr-10 Read online

  Ptolemy and Pothinus had known of my estrangement from Meto. Had Merianis not also known of it? Perhaps she was more innocent than I thought-or perhaps not. I suddenly found myself full of suspicion, and I loathed the feeling. It was into just such a morass of doubt and double-dealing that I had found myself immersed in Massilia, and the result had been my breach with both Meto and Caesar. The two of them had followed me to Alexandria, bringing their poisonous treachery to a city already riven by deceit. I felt like a man struggling in quicksand, unable to find a foothold. I wanted only to be left alone.

  "Go, Merianis."

  "Gordianus-called-Finder, if by bringing your son here I have offended you-"

  "Go!"

  She frowned and wrinkled her brow, then turned and exited through the open doorway.

  "As for you, Meto-"

  "Papa, don't speak rashly! Please, I beg you-"

  "Silence!"

  He bit his lip and lowered his eyes, but seemed compelled to speak. "Papa, if it means something to you, I've begun to share your doubts about Caesar." He gazed at me for a moment before looking away, as if taken aback at the enormity and the recklessness of the words he had just uttered.

  I stared at him until he returned my gaze. "Elaborate."

  He looked sidelong at Rupa.

  I nodded. "I see. Your training as a spy has taught you to hold your tongue in front of a stranger. But I won't ask Rupa to leave the room. Or the boys, either. Anything you have to say to me can be said to them as well."

  "This is difficult enough for me!" Meto glared at Rupa with an emotion that went beyond mere distrust. I had disowned Meto; I had adopted Rupa. Did Meto feel he had been replaced?

  I shook my head. "Say what you have to say."

  He drew a deep breath. "Ever since Pharsalus… no, even before that. Since the military operations at Dyrrachium… or was it when Caesar was last in Rome, using his powers as dictator to settle the problems that had cropped up in his absence? No, even earlier; I think it must have begun when I was reunited with him at Massilia-when you disowned me there in the town square, even as Caesar was basking in the triumph of the city's surrender. The things you said to me, the things you said about Caesar-I thought you'd gone mad, Papa. Quite literally, I thought the strains of the siege had driven you to distraction. Afterwards, Caesar said as much. 'Don't worry,' he told me, 'your father will come to his senses. Give him time.' But perhaps that was the moment I began to come to my senses."

  He paused, gathering strength to go on. "Was I the one who changed? Or was it Caesar? Don't misunderstand me; he's still the greatest man I've ever encountered in this world. His intellect, his courage, his insight-he towers above the rest of us like a colossus. And yet…"

  He fell silent for a long moment, then finally shrugged. "It's me. I've simply lost my stomach for it. I've seen too much blood, too much suffering. There's a dream I have over and over, about a little village in Gaul, a tiny place, utterly insignificant compared to Rome or Alexandria, but not so insignificant that it could be ignored when it raised a challenge to Caesar. We circled the village and took them by surprise. There was a battle, quite short and simple as battles go. We slaughtered every man who dared to take up arms against us. Those who surrendered we put in chains. Then we rousted the women and children and the old people from their homes, and we burned the whole village to the ground. To set an example, you see. The survivors were sold as slaves, probably to other Gauls. That was how it worked in Gaul. Surrender and become a Roman subject; oppose us and become a slave. 'One must always give them a clear, simple choice,' Caesar told me. 'You are with Rome or against Rome; there is no middle ground.'

  "But when I dream about that village, it's the face of one particular child I see, a little boy too young to fight, almost too young to understand what was happening. His father had been killed in the battle; his mother was mad with grief. The little boy didn't cry at all; he simply watched the house he'd grown up in as it was eaten by flames. To judge from the workshop attached to the house, the boy's father had been a smith. The boy would probably have grown up to be a smith, too, with a wife and children and a life in the village. But instead, he saw his father die and he was taken from his mother, to become a slave for the rest of his life. Whatever money his new master paid for him went to fund more campaigns against more villages in Gaul, so that more boys like him could be enslaved. In my dream, I see his face, blank and staring, with the light of the flames in his eyes.

  "His village wasn't destroyed out of simple spite, of course. All that was done in Gaul was done for a greater purpose; so Caesar always told me. He has a grand vision. The whole world shall be unified under Rome, and Rome shall be unified under Caesar; but for that to happen, certain things must happen first. Gaul had to be pacified and brought under Rome's sway; and so it was done. When the Senate of Rome turned against Caesar, the senators had to be run out of Rome, and so it was done. When Pompey roused the opposition against Caesar, the opposition had to be destroyed; and so it was done. Now Caesar must decide what is to be done with Egypt, and who should rule it, and how best to bring it under his sway. And the glory of Caesar burns brighter than ever. I should be pleased, having done my part to bring all this about; but I have that dream, almost every night now. The fire burns, and the boy stares at the flames, numb with shock. In the great scheme of things it doesn't matter that he was enslaved; Rome shall rule the world, and Caesar shall rule Rome, and to make that happen, that boy's enslavement was one tiny necessity in a great chain of necessities.

  "But sometimes… sometimes I wake with a mad thought in my head: What if that boy's life mattered as much as anyone else's, even Caesar's? What if I were offered a choice: to doom that boy to the misery of his fate, or to spare him, and by doing so, to wreck all Caesar's ambitions? I'm haunted by that thought-which is ridiculous! It's self-evident that Caesar matters infinitely more than that Gaulish boy; one stands poised to rule the world, and the other is a miserable slave, if he even still lives. Some men are great, others are insignificant, and it behooves those of us who are in-between to ally ourselves with the greatest and to despise the smallest. To even begin to imagine that the Gaulish boy matters as much as Caesar is to presume that some mystical quality resides in every man and makes his life equal to that of any other, and surely the lesson life teaches us is quite the opposite! In strength and intellect, men are anything but equal, and the gods lavish their attention on some more than on others. And yet…"

  Meto bowed his head, and the rush of words came to a stop. I could see that his distress was genuine, and I was astounded at the course of his thoughts.

  "Does Caesar ever harbor such doubts?"

  Meto laughed bitterly. "Caesar never questions his good fortune. He loves the gods, and the gods love him. Triumph is its own vindication. So long as a man is triumphant, he need never question his methods or his aims. Once upon a time, that philosophy was enough for me, but now…" He shook his head. "Caesar forgets that old Greek word hubris."

  It was my turn to laugh. "If Caesar hasn't provoked the gods' wrath before now, then surely-"

  "But Caesar never presumed to imagine himself a god, before now."

  I looked at him keenly. "What are you saying?"

  "Ever since we set sail for Egypt, he's kept bringing it up, jokingly at first. 'These Ptolemies don't merely live like gods,' he'd say, 'they are gods; I must see how they put their divinity into practice.' But it's not a joke, is it? With Pompey gone, the Senate made irrelevant, and all the legions united under him, Caesar will need to think long and hard about what it means to rule like a king, whether he calls himself one or not. The example of Alexander doesn't give much guidance; he died too young. It's the Ptolemies who provide the model for a long and successful dynasty, even if their glory has lately dwindled to the two decadent specimens currently vying to run the country."

  "You don't think much of King Ptolemy and his sister?"

  "You saw that display by the queen tonight! She an
d her brother both seem to have the same idea: seduce the man to make an ally of the general."

  I frowned. "Are you suggesting that young Ptolemy-" "Is completely smitten by Caesar. It's rather pathetic, actually. You should see the fawning way he behaves when the two of them are together-the way he looks at Caesar, the hero worship in his eyes!"

  I nodded, recalling Ptolemy's reaction when I told him that Cleopatra was alone with Caesar. "I suppose Caesar must be immune to that sort of thing, having received the adulation of so many young men over the years." Including a copious dose from you, Meto, I thought.

  Meto scowled. "You might think so, but with Ptolemy, it's different somehow. Caesar seems equally fascinated by him. His face lights up when Ptolemy comes into the room. They put their heads together, share private jokes, laugh, and give each other knowing glances. I can't understand it. It's certainly not because the boy's beautiful. He and his sister are both rather plain, if you ask me." He snorted. "Now we shall have both of them buzzing around him, like flies around a honey pot!"

  I considered this revelation. If true, It wouldn't be the first time that Caesar had engaged in a royal romance. His erotic exploits as a young man in the court of King Nicomedes of Bithynia had become the stuff of legend, inspiring vicious gossip among his political rivals and ribald marching songs among Caesar's own men. (Their insatiable imperator was "every woman's husband and every man's husband," according to one refrain.) In the case of King Nicomedes, Caesar had been the younger paramour, and presumably the receptive partner (hence the resulting scandal and the soldiers' teasing, since a Roman male is never supposed to submit to another man, only to play the dominant role). With Caesar and Ptolemy, the roles presumably would be reversed, with Caesar the older, more worldly partner and Ptolemy the wide-eyed youth hungry for experience.

  When poets sing of lovers, they celebrate Harmodias and Aristogiton, or Theseus and Ariadne. But lovers need not always be so evenly matched in beauty and youth. I thought of my own affair with Cassandra, a much younger woman, and I comprehended the spark of mutual desire that Caesar and the king might have ignited in one another. Despite all his worldly success, Caesar was at that age when even the most robust of men feel acutely the increasing frailty of their once-invincible bodies, and begin to look with envy (and yes, sometimes lust) upon the firm, vigorous bodies of men younger than themselves. Youth itself becomes an aphrodisiac to the man who no longer possesses it; youth coupled with reciprocal desire becomes irresistible.

  To an outsider, such love affairs can appear absurd or demeaning-the doddering man of means hankering after some hapless slave boy. But this was a meeting of two extraordinary men. I thought of Ptolemy's combination of boyish enthusiasm and grave sense of purpose, self-assurance and naivete. I thought of Caesar's effortless sophistication and supreme confidence, and of his slightly ridiculous vanity, as betrayed by the way he combed his hair to cover his bald spot. Both were not merely men but rulers of men; and yet, not rulers only, but men as well, with appetites, frailties, uncertainties, needs; and not merely men and rulers, but-so they themselves appeared to believe-descendents and incarnations of divinity. Added to this was the fact that Ptolemy had lost his beloved father, and Caesar had never had a son. I could well imagine that Caesar and the king had something unique to offer one another, in a private realm far removed from the public arena of riches, arms, and diplomacy; that in a moment alone with each other, they might share an understanding inaccessible to the rest of us.

  Why was Meto so scornful in conveying his suspicions? Had he been as intimate with Caesar as I had often been led to believe? Had that intimacy lessened, or ended altogether? Were his feelings about Caesar's dalliances with the royal siblings tinged with jealousy-and did that jealousy make his assumptions more reliable, or less?

  I gave a start, as if waking from a dream. Meto and the way of life he had chosen to follow with Caesar were no longer my concern. Even if what he had just told me was true-that he himself had begun to doubt that way of life-still, it was of no consequence to me. So I told myself.

  "You speak as if a gulf has opened between you and Caesar. Yet earlier tonight, I saw with my own eyes how the two of you got along-like the best of old friends, completely at ease. Almost like an old married couple, I daresay."

  "Did it look that way? Appearances can be deceiving." He lowered his eyes, and suddenly I felt a stab of doubt. Had Meto grown cagey and dissimulating with Caesar, using the skills of deception that had become second nature to him to put on a face to the man he had once admired but now doubted? Or was I the one being fooled? For all I knew, Meto was still very much Caesar's trusted spy, and I was simply another source of information to be cultivated.

  I stiffened my spine and hardened my heart. "You've said what you had to say, and so have I. It's been a long day-too long and too eventful for an old man like me. I need my rest now. Go."

  Meto looked crestfallen. "There's so much more I wanted to say. Perhaps… next time."

  I looked at him without blinking and gestured to the open door.

  He gave each of the boys a hug, nodded curtly to Rupa, then turned to leave.

  "Meto-wait a moment."

  He stopped in the doorway and turned back. "As long as you're here-Rupa, would you pull the trunk closer to the bed? Open the lid, please." Since we had settled in our rooms, I no longer kept the trunk locked. I sat on the bed and sorted through its contents.

  "What are you looking for, Papa?" said Meto. "Bethesda's things are here. She would have wanted you to have something… as a keepsake."

  I removed various items from the trunk, spreading them beside me on the bed to sort through them. I came across Bethesda's silver-and-ebony comb. My fingers trembled as I picked it up. Would it mean as much to Meto as it meant to me? Perhaps; but I could not bear to part with it. I would have to find something else to give him.

  "What's that?" he asked.

  "What?"

  "There-that alabaster vial. Was it Bethesda's?"

  "No."

  "Are you sure? It looks like the sort of thing in which she might have kept a perfume. To be able to smell her scent again-I'd like that."

  "That vial was not Bethesda's!"

  "You needn't speak so harshly."

  I sighed. "The vial was given to me by Cornelia."

  He frowned. "Pompey's wife?"

  "Yes. The whole story is too complicated to recount, but believe me, that vial does not contain perfume."

  "Poison?"

  I looked at him sharply. "Caesar has indeed taught you to think like a spy."

  He shook his head gravely. "Some things I learned from you, Papa, whether you like it or not, and a penchant for deduction is one of them. If not perfume, what else would a woman like Cornelia carry in a vial like that? And if she gave it to you…"

  "She didn't hire me to assassinate someone, if that's what you're thinking."

  "I was thinking that she gave it to you out of mercy, or perhaps simple convenience-to spare you a more violent death. The poison was intended for you, wasn't it, Papa?"

  I almost smiled; his cleverness pleased me, in spite of myself. "It's something called Nemesis-in-a-bottle, quick and relatively painless, or so Cornelia told me. She claimed it was her personal supply, for her own use if the need should arise."

  "Poor Cornelia! She must be missing it now."

  "Perhaps, but I doubt it. Cornelia survived Publius Crassus. She survived Pompey. She'll probably survive yet another ill-starred husband."

  "If any man would be foolish enough to marry such an ill-starred wife!"

  I pulled myself upright and stiffened my jaw. Engaging in banter was not my reason for calling Meto back. Among the objects strewn across the bed, I spotted a small jar made of carved malachite, with a lid of the same stone secured by a brass clamp. I picked it up, gazed it at for a long moment, then handed it to Meto.

  "Perhaps you'd like this, to remember her by. The beeswax inside is suffused with the scent Bethesda wore
on special occasions. I told her to leave it in Rome, but she insisted on packing it. 'What if we attend a dinner with Queen Cleopatra?' she said. She was being facetious, of course."

  He unclamped the lid and held the jar to his nose. The perfume was subtle but unmistakable, its ingredients a secret even to me. I caught a faint whiff. Tears came to my eyes.

  Meto clamped the lid. His voice was choked with emotion. "If you're sure you want to give it to me…"

  "Take it."

  "Thank you, Papa."

  He turned to go, then turned back. "That vial of poison, Papa-you should get rid of it."

  And you should mind your own business, I started to say, but the lump in my throat was too thick. The best I could manage was a curt gesture of dismissal.

  Meto stepped through the doorway and disappeared.

  Why did I not do as Meto advised? From my window, I could have cast the alabaster vial into the harbor, where it would have sunk like a stone. Instead, I gathered it up with the other things on the bed and stuffed them back into the trunk, then closed the lid and threw myself onto my bed.

  Rupa hovered over me. I told him to go to his room. Mopsus approached, clearing his throat to speak. I told him to take Androcles and follow Rupa. They left me alone.

  I covered my face with my forearm and wept. As faint as a whisper, Bethesda's perfume lingered on the air.

  CHAPTER XVII

  The boys stayed very quiet the next morning, allowing me to sleep late. I was still groggy, my head full of uneasy dreams, when Merianis arrived bearing a scrap of papyrus that had been folded several times and sealed with wax. The impression in the wax was that of Caesar's ring, which bore an image of Venus circled by the letters of his name.

  "What's this?" I said.

  "I've no idea," said Merianis. "A missive from Little Rome. I'm merely the bearer. Shall I stay, in case you wish to send a reply?"

  "Stay, so that I can look upon your beaming face. At least someone in this palace is happy. I don't suppose the return of your mistress has anything to do with your mood this morning?"