Hannibal's Children (24 page)

Marcus blinked the stars from his eyes and signaled for the messenger to approach. "The Queen-Regent Selene desires the attendance of the delegation from Noricum at this afternoon's court," the man said, handing him a document intended to pass him through the doorways of the palace to the august presence.

Marcus dismissed the man and called his following together for a briefing. Before it broke up, Caesar nudged Flaccus. "Better brush up on your seductive wiles, Flaccus. It looks like we're going to call on the old lady."

Flaccus sighed amid general hilarity. "The things one must do to serve the Republic."

Two hours later they arrived at the gate of the palace. Except for its massive scale, the imposing building maintained the pleasing, austere harmony of classical Greek architecture, eschewing the over-elaboration so common to Successor aesthetics. The only Egyptian elements were two sphinxes flanking the great doorway, and these were Greek in execution if not in inspiration.

Instead of a military guard, a steward dressed in a snowy robe met them. "You would be the delegation from Noricum?"

"We are Romans," Marcus answered.

"Your pardon, gentlemen," the steward said gravely, "but Her Majesty has instructed that you be addressed as envoys of Noricum until certain diplomatic questions are answered. If you will come this way."

"She's not taking any chances," Flaccus said in Latin as they followed the man. "The Seven Hills are on Carthaginian territory now, so she's not ready to address us as Romans just yet."

"We'll just have to convince her that Rome is ours, not Carthage's," Marcus said.

The walls were decorated with the ever-popular motif of the battle of gods and giants, with the latter depicted as all manner of grotesques: men with serpents for legs, or bodies covered with eyes or with dragon tails or lion heads. The gods were depicted as idealized humans, identifiable by their attributes: Zeus with his thunderbolts, helmeted Ares and Athena, Apollo with his bow, Artemis in her hunting tunic and boots.

They came to a double door of bronze worked in a foliate design and were admitted to a spacious room they took at first to be an anteroom to the throne room proper. In this they were mistaken.

At one end of the room a young woman in a plain blue gown was deep in conversation with a number of elderly men who had the look of scholars. She glanced toward them and came forward. "You are the delegation from Noricum?" she said.

"Romans," Marcus said. "We are here to meet with your queen." He looked past her for someone more official. "We expected to be presented at court. Who are you, girl? One of the queen's attendants?" He wondered what made the jaws of the old scholars drop in unison. He looked around to see if some prodigy had occurred behind him.

"No," said the young woman. "I'm Selene."

It took a moment for the words to register. "I suppose it's a common name around here. The Selene we wish to see is—"

"Foreigner!" spluttered one of the graybeards. "You address the queen of Egypt! You speak to Selene Ptolemy the Second!"

For the first time since leaving Noricum, Marcus was utterly nonplussed. The young woman before him raised a fine-boned hand and quirked an eyebrow quizzically. He took the small hand in his much larger one, a hand that seemed to have turned numb. Flaccus stepped in and appropriated the queen's hand in his own.

"We are most charmed, Your Majesty. I am Flaccus, and I've been named official—"

Marcus trod heavily on his foot and regained her hand. "You may address me, Majesty. I am Marcus Cornelius Scipio and I am head of the Roman delegation." He stopped and took a deep breath. "I fear our rustic simplicity has played us an ill turn and I apologize. Would it be utterly oafish of me to note that Your Majesty looks very little like her coin portrait?"

At this she released a full-throated laugh and even a few of the elders managed dry chuckles. "This explains it! I fear you've been deceived by our propaganda. Since the Successors of Alexander took over his empire, it has been our custom to portray reigning queens as stern-faced old matrons on the coinage. It's thought that people won't take a young queen seriously."

"I see. That does explain it." Gods! he thought. I must sound like an utter bumpkin!

She laced an arm through his. "Come along and walk with me, Marcus Cornelius Scipio. While we walk, you can introduce me to your friends."

She conducted him out of the room onto a terrace, thence to a staircase that descended to a splendid garden. This, for a court proceeding, seemed amazingly informal to Marcus. He introduced the other Romans and she greeted each courteously, putting everyone at their ease until she had them all conversing as casually as if they were home among friends. It was, Marcus thought, an amazing performance.

"These are myrrh trees from Ethiopia," she explained, showing them some shrub-like growths with aromatic leaves. They already knew that the garden contained flora from all over the Ptolemaic dominion.

"I always wondered where that stuff came from," Brutus said.

"Merchants trade it so far north?" she asked. To Marcus's amazement, she wanted to know details of commerce: prices, middlemen's percentages and other unqueenly things. It was hard to imagine anything more different from Carthaginian royalty. It did not make him drop his guard. This might be a pose. She might be playing them for fools. At least she didn't try to put them off balance by appearing nearly naked, as Zarabel had.

"Your Majesty is well versed in the details of trade," Marcus noted.

"Queens usually are," she said. "Kings love war and conquest. Queens know that real wealth and prosperity come through profitable trade."

"Few nations are so favored by the gods as Egypt," Flaccus noted. "You have a great deal to trade with."

"That is true," she agreed. "But peaceful trade is more than just wealth. It is vision. A predecessor of mine, one Queen Hatshepsut, reigned over Egypt as pharaoh in her own right some fourteen hundred years ago. The glory of her reign was a huge trade expedition she sent along the coasts of Arabia and Ethiopia. The ancestors of these myrrh trees may have come to Egypt on that voyage. The details of it are carved on the walls of her temple. She expanded Egypt's knowledge of the world and bettered the condition of the whole nation. She was succeeded by Thutmose the Third, another warrior-king. He killed a great many foreigners but he did nothing to enrich his kingdom."

Marcus disliked hearing conquest spoken of thus dismissively, but he knew that certain allowances had to be made for a reigning queen, especially one as rich as this one. "Truly, Your Majesty, a nation of prominence and power will have neither without both military strength and a profitable balance of trade."

"Well spoken. You people are not as rustic as you would have us believe."

"We lack your level of sophistication. This does not mean we are stupid. Perhaps we overemphasize military virtue to the detriment of foreign trade, but it is our backwardness in the latter that we hope to correct with this mission. You, on the other hand, would be well advised to reevaluate the importance of your military." He could almost hear the eyes rolling behind him. Once again, he was overstepping his authority.

She blinked, seeming astonished for the first time. "Your nation's reputation for blunt speech is not exaggerated, I see. What do you mean?"

"You must be aware that Hamilcar of Carthage is preparing for war against you. He makes no secret of it."

"Certainly. It is far from the first time Carthage has sought to take advantage of us. There will be some fighting on the Libyan border. There will be some naval forays. He will probably make an attempt to take Cyprus. We have met these threats before."

"I saw something of the scale of his preparations. I believe you should take this threat more seriously."

"Why?"

"Because Hamilcar wishes to hire Roman legions for his war. If he does that, you can kiss your kingdom—"

"Scipio!" Brutus barked. "The Senate has not—"

Marcus whirled to face him. "The Senate has bestowed upon me power of negotiation. Do not interfere." Brutus held his glare for a moment, but Roman discipline prevailed. Brutus lowered his eyes and stepped back.

Selene chose to ignore the little byplay. "I know your reputation. At least, I've read of the reputation of your ancestors. I think it would take more than the addition of a few of your legions to turn Hamilcar into his ancestor." She studied his expression for a moment. "You mean it! You really think that you are that good."

"I would not question the quality of Your Majesty's army and navy," Marcus said. "But when was their last war?"

"Four years ago Antiochus of Syria invaded the Sinai and I had to repel him."

"And this war required what part of your military forces?"

"I sent six myriads, but in the event only a third of the force was used. There was a battle near Gaza and Antiochus withdrew."

"I see. Majesty, about how often are your men required to fight?"

She looked mystified but amused. "I would say that there is fighting in two or three out of each ten years. What is your point?"

"It is this. The legions of Roma Noricum have been engaged in active campaigning every year since we left Italy. That was one hundred sixteen years ago. For all those years, at least half the legions of Rome have been committed to active campaigning in any given year. Rarely does any legion go for two years without heavy fighting."

"I see. But you have been fighting barbarians."

"They are hard-fighting warriors and they are not as undisciplined as you might think. I have seen something of the armies of Carthage. They are well equipped and finely drilled, but few of them are what Romans would consider veterans."

"And what is the Roman definition of a veteran?" she asked.

"We rate a man as a veteran if he has ten campaigns behind him. Not ten fights: ten campaigns. A legion is considered inexperienced and unreliable if no more than half its men are veterans."

"You have high military standards."

"So we have. We learned a great deal from Hannibal. We believe that military preparedness is the highest of priorities and we vowed never again to go to war with hastily raised armies of conscripts. No man can seek public office unless he has those same ten campaigns behind him. A praetor— a senior magistrate—is also a qualified general. We are soldiers from birth: farmers, shopkeepers, artisans and the wealthiest equites and patricians."

She nodded. "Captain Aeson reported to me about your fight with the pirates. He was most impressed."

"It wasn't much of a fight," Marcus said.

"That was what so impressed him. I believe you when you tell me you are a nation of born soldiers."

"Not born," he corrected. "Made. Soldiering is something that must be learned early and in a hard school. Your own ancestors, Philip and Alexander's Macedonians, understood this."

"We shall talk about this further," she said. "But let me show you the royal menagerie. We have some of the world's fiercest animals in our collection."

The queen assigned them accommodations in the huge palace complex and when they went to their new quarters that evening, the rest of the Roman party took Marcus to task for his actions that day.

"Wasn't proposing a military alliance with Carthage enough?" Brutus said. "Now you want to do the same with Egypt?"

"And why are you dealing with this woman?" Caesar asked.

"It's that coin portrait," Marcus said.

"Your sense eludes me," Brutus said.

"She said that reigning queens are so depicted on the coins. She does not consider her unripe husband the king and herself the queen-consort. She is the real ruler of Egypt."

"There is likely to be a faction at this court that does not share that opinion," Brutus pointed out.

"Undoubtedly. Would you rather deal with this very clever and sane woman, or with a boy who is almost certainly controlled by courtiers and counselors? I understand that these positions are usually filled by eunuchs at the Alexandrian court."

"Just what is this southern enthusiasm for deballed men?" Caesar wanted to know.

"Kings get nervous when they have too many real men around them," Flaccus told him. "They fear revolts and worry about the paternity of their sons."

"For the next few days," Marcus told them, "we will be organizing our mission here. We will also do what everyone who visits Alexandria does: We will go sightseeing. You all know the drill. Fortifications, naval installations, road approaches. Flaccus, I want you to climb to the top of that lighthouse and draw a map of the whole city."

"All the way to the top?" Flaccus said, aghast. "I'll never make it!"

"Hire a litter to carry you," Brutus advised.

"It's a sad day," said Marcus, "when a Roman official can't manage a few thousand steps on his own feet."

"It's a few thousand steps
straight up!"
Flaccus said.

"Do it."

"What will you be doing?" Brutus wanted to know.

"I've decided to take up the pursuit of culture," Marcus said.

"Culture?" said young Caesar with wonder in his voice.

"Exactly. I am going to pay a visit to the Museum."

The court official in charge of foreign embassies wanted to provide guides, litters, personal servants and every comfort and convenience. It was Alexandrian practice to treat envoys lavishly. Marcus politely declined all offers. He wanted neither guides nor spies.

The Museum proved to be a large complex of buildings adjacent to the palace. For the most part, they differed from the palace in being proportioned to a more human scale. Even the temple of the Muses from which the complex took its name was an exquisitely modest building. The largest edifice was the great Library, which housed countless thousands of volumes, together with facilities for making copies of the books stored there.

The rest consisted of lecture halls, porticoes, courtyards, dormitories and dining halls. Here scholars from all over the Greek world came to study and to teach. Here they could live at the king's expense with no obligation to perform any work for the court.