Empire (66 page)

“I hadn’t noticed. My thoughts are on more important things.”

“But how can you be in pain and not think about it? A man can’t ignore pain.”

“Not so,” said Apollonius. “The mind attends to what the self deems important. If there is injury, a man may choose not to feel pain, or order the pain to stop.”

The man pursed his lips. “But why are you still here? You’re a magician. Why don’t you just walk out?”

Apollonius laughed. “Like the man who me put me here, you accuse me of being a magician. Well, let us suppose that it’s true. In that case, it must be that I am here among you because I wish to be.”

“Why would any man wish to be here?” said another man, stepping forward and crossing his arms.

“Perhaps I can serve a purpose. Perhaps my words can give comfort or courage. How did you come to be here, friend?”

“The plain truth? I have too much wealth.”

Lucius saw that the speaker was dressed in a fine tunic and cloak, though his clothes were filthy from long confinement in the dank cell. His face was haggard, but folds of flesh hung from his chin, as if he had once been fat but had lost weight very quickly.

“Who put you here?” said Apollonius.

“Who do you think? The same man who put us all here.”

“He covets your wealth?”

“He told me to my face, before he sent me here, that an excess of wealth is dangerous for a common citizen. Money makes a man insolent and prideful, he said. As if trumping up charges against me, throwing me in this hole, and trying to extort my money was all for my own good!”

“Did he offer you a way out?”

“As soon as I’ll admit to false charges of evading taxes and hand over my fortune, I shall be released.”

“Then why are you still here? The money is doing you no good. Its only value is to buy your way out of this place.”

“I won’t give it up!”

“Your wealth landed you here, my friend, and your wealth will purchase your release. More importantly, paying the ransom will free you from the money itself, for wealth is also a prison. The man who takes it from you will only increase his bondage.”

“This is nonsense!” The man mumbled an obscenity and turned away.

Apollonius spoke in a low voice to Lucius. “I think that fellow is not quite ready to receive my message.”

“What about me?” said another man, stepping forward. He was tall and solidly built but his hands trembled. “I could use some courage. They’re taking me to face the emperor this very afternoon. I think I shall die from fear before that happens.”

“Take heart, my friend. I myself just came from the emperor’s presence, yet you can see that I emerged unscathed.”

“But everyone knows you’re fearless. How do you do it?”

“I thought of an example I would not be ashamed to follow. You can do the same.”

“But what example did you think of?”

“I remembered Odysseus and the peril he faced when he entered the cave of Polyphemus. The Cyclops was gigantic, and far too strong for even a hundred men to overmaster. With its single eye, the creature was almost too hideous to look at, and its booming voice was like thunder. Strewn all around were human bones, the remains of past meals, for the Cyclops was an eater of human flesh. But did Odysseus take fright? No. He considered his situation and asked himself how to get the better of an opponent too powerful to be overcome by force and too vicious to be reasoned with. Yet, Odysseus left the lair of the Cyclops alive, and with most of his companions alive.”

The first man who had spoken, who had asked Apollonius about the shearing of his hair and the pain caused by his shackles, spoke up again. “Are you comparing our emperor to the Cyclops? Are you saying he should be blinded?”

Apollonius whispered in Lucius’s ear, “I suspect this fellow is an informer. His previous comments were not to commiserate with me, but to goad me into speaking ill of Domitian.” Apollonius answered the man, “What do
you
think, my friend, of the man who put you here among us?”

The man shrugged. “I have nothing good to say about him.”

“Would that every man could have such a mild temperament! Have you no harsh words for the man who confines other men to such a foul place, who cuts their hair and puts them in shackles, who extorts their wealth, whose famous cruelty causes them to tremble when they’re called before him?”

“Naturally, I feel as the others here must feel.”

“And how is that? By all means, speak freely,” said Apollonius. “You can say whatever you like in front of me, for I am the last man in the world to inform against another. No? You have nothing to say? As for myself, what I have to say to the emperor, I’ll say to his face.”

“That’s telling him!” said the man who had been fearful of meeting the
emperor. There were nods and grunts of agreement. Clearly, many in the cell already suspected the informer.

Apollonius stepped back, as if he were done speaking, but the other prisoners implored him to keep talking. “Tell us more,” said one of them. “The worst thing about this place is the boredom. Tell us about your travels. You’ve been all over the world.”

Apollonius sat on the floor. The prisoners gathered around him. He described rivers and mountains and deserts he had seen. He talked about the people he had met and their exotic customs. The men listened with rapt expressions, some closing their eyes, transported by the Teacher’s narrative to faraway places, freed from their prison cell by the pictures he painted in their imaginations. Lucius closed his eyes and listened with them.

Apollonius spoke of finding the spot, high in the icy mountains of the Caucasus Indicus, where even Alexander the Great had not ventured, where the gods had chained Prometheus for his crime of giving fire to mortals.

“I discovered the very manacles which had held the Titan. Gigantic they were, so big that a man could stand inside one with his arms outstretched and barely touch the sides. The manacles were set into either side of a narrow gorge—thus, one could see just how enormous Prometheus must have been. The Titan himself was long gone. The locals told me that Hercules, on one of his many journeys, came upon Prometheus even as Jupiter’s eagle arrived to perform the daily torment of tearing out the Titan’s entrails. Hercules took pity on Prometheus and shot the eagle out of the sky. In the ravine below, I found the bones of an enormous bird, larger than any other bones I had ever seen. Hercules broke the manacles and set Prometheus free. Indeed, I could see that the metal was severed and twisted, but strangely it was not covered with rust. Vulcan must have forged those manacles of some alloy unknown to mortal men.”

Exhausted by the day’s events and lulled by the Teacher’s voice, Lucius was almost dozing. He chanced to open his eyes, just enough to peer through the lashes, and saw that Apollonius was using each hand to rub the wrist of the other, stretching the tendons and massaging the soreness caused by the manacles—
which were gone
.

Lucius’s eyes shot open and he uttered an exclamation of amazement. The others, most of whom also seemed to be half dozing, bolted upright and followed his gaze.

“His shackles!” said one of the men. “He’s taken off his shackles.”

“Have I?” Apollonius looked around absentmindedly, as if he had misplaced something. “So I have. Ah, but it would never do for the guards to see me this way. They’d be terribly upset.” He turned his back on them for a moment and engaged in a series of peculiar movements, hunching over and twisting from side to side. When he turned back, the shackles were again around his wrists.

“There, that’s better,” said Apollonius, shaking his manacles so that they made a dull clang. He began a new story, this one about the time he had spent in Babylon in his younger days, where he met the Parthian king, Vardanes, and his Chaldean astrologers.

Lucius looked down at his own manacles. He turned his hands this way and that and tugged against the shackles. There was no way he could possibly take them off. And yet it seemed that the Teacher had slipped out of his manacles without even thinking, as a man might shuffle off a pair of loose shoes. Or had Apollonius only created the illusion of doing so? Or had he never been placed in the manacles at all?

They passed many days in the cell. The accommodations were foul and the food was poor, but the regimen was not harsh; they were not physically harmed or made to do labor. Lucius received a visit from Hilarion, who assured Lucius that everything was running smoothly in his absence. It occurred to Lucius not for the first time that he was an incidental part of his own household, which was entirely capable of running itself without him.

Apollonius also received visitors, including a delegation of distinguished men headed by Marcus Nerva, an elder statesman of the Senate. Nerva looked the part, with his narrow, ascetic face, his high, broad forehead, and his neatly groomed white hair. Lucius knew the senator to be a friend and correspondent of Dio of Prusa.

Nerva asked after the prisoner’s health; Apollonius responded by asking after the senator’s health, since Nerva looked considerably more frail than he did. From their easy manner with each other, Lucius realized that the two were old acquaintances. Lucius never ceased to be surprised at the great number and variety of people Apollonius knew. To know Apollonius,
it seemed, was to be only a step or two removed from almost anyone in the world.

Nerva and Apollonius conversed about inconsequential matters—prison food, the weather, and which of them had whiter hair. Apollonius asked Nerva about his hometown, the village of Narnia, which was said to be in the exact center of Italy and was one of the few places Apollonius had never visited; Nerva assured him that it was a charming town. It seemed to Lucius that Apollonius must have given Nerva a sign early on that an informer was present, and that their conversation should be guarded. Or were they conversing in code?

After the visitors left, Lucius expressed surprise that Nerva and the others had dared to pay a call on Apollonius. Domitian was always seeing conspiracies among the senators. Did these men not risk arousing the emperor’s suspicion by visiting a man arrested for disrespecting the emperor’s majesty?

“Not so,” said Apollonius. “By coming to see me so openly, those fellows protect themselves from suspicion. If I were indeed seditious, and if they were colluding with me, would they come to chat with me about the weather? They came here as Roman statesmen, to pay a courtesy call on a man who once counseled the Divine Vespasian and the Divine Titus. Conspirators would not come to see me at all, but would lurk in the shadows. Thus, by their boldness they disarm Domitian’s fear.”

“I see. Nerva didn’t look that clever to me.”

“Don’t let his manner fool you. Nerva is a very canny fellow. I have high hopes for him.”

“High hopes for a frail old senator?”

“To all appearances, there was never a more robust man than Titus, yet those who put their hopes for the future in Titus saw those hopes dashed. So why not look to a frail old man to deliver a brighter tomorrow?”

One day passed into another, until one morning a Praetorian arrived and told them they were to be taken before the emperor, who was ready to try them and pronounce judgment.

Lucius had done his best to prepare for this moment, striving to emulate the Teacher’s equanimity. Still, he felt a thrill of panic.

“Teacher, what will become of us?”

“Lucius, what do you fear? That we shall be tortured and killed? Every living thing must die, and there are things far worse than the suffering of physical pain. How much more terrible if we should comport ourselves disgracefully and lose our self-respect; then we should truly be damaged, and the harm would have been inflicted by ourselves.”

Lucius breathed deeply. “I shall look to you, Teacher. I shall follow your example.”

“And I shall do my best to make that example a good one, Lucius. To know that your eyes are on me will give me strength.”

They were taken first to an antechamber adjoining the reception room. Their shackles were removed. A group of slaves appeared, charged with making them presentable for the trial. Basins of water were brought. Their faces and hands were scrubbed clean. They were dressed in clean tunics. They were also given shoes, but because these were made of leather, Apollonius would not wear them. Lucius followed the Teacher’s example and remained barefoot.