The Triumph of Caesar (16 page)

She frowned and ignored the question. "Yes, I was sorry to learn of Hieronymus's demise. He was murdered, was he not?"

"That is correct. But that detail was not entered into the death registry."

She snorted. "I don't rely on public records for my information, Gordianus-called-Finder. And neither do you. What have you learned about your friend's death?"

"The killer remains unknown."

"But not for long, I'm sure. You're such a clever fellow. Have you come to seek my help? Or do you perhaps think I'm responsible? By Horus, there seems to be no crime too great or too small, but some Roman will accuse me of it."

"Actually, there is a question you might help me to answer, Your Majesty."

"Ask."

The previous day, it had occurred to me that Hieronymus's apparent interest in calendars might have been fostered by Calpurnia's uncle Gnaeus, in his capacity as a priest. But because Hieronymus had visited Cleopatra, and her scholars were assisting Caesar with his new calendar, it also occurred to me that someone in the queen's household might have instructed Hieronymus in astronomical matters.

I had brought his notes with me. I pulled them from my satchel and began to hand them to Cleopatra, but Apollodorus intervened. He stepped forward and snatched the scraps of parchment from me. He sniffed them and ran his hands over them systematically, front and back, as if testing them for poison. Toxins which can kill though contact with the skin have existed at least since the time of Medea. Satisfied that the notes were harmless, he passed them to the queen, who perused them with a curious expression.

"I was wondering if Your Majesty might recognize these."

"No. I've never seen them before. But clearly these computations have something to do with the movements of the moon and stars and the reckoning of days. Did these come from Hieronymus?"

"They were among his personal papers, Your Majesty."

She handed the documents back to me. "What a clever fellow he was!"

"I was wondering, Your Majesty, if Hieronymus might have consulted with your scholars about the new calendar Caesar plans to introduce."

"Absolutely not!"

"You seem very certain."

"At Caesar's request, I have instructed all those involved in devising the new calendar to speak to no one. Caesar is very insistent that there should be no public knowledge of the details before he makes his official announcement."

"Then Hieronymus must have made these calculations with instruction from someone else."

"Yes. He certainly had no precise knowledge about my new calendar."

"
Your
calendar? I thought the revised calendar was Caesar's brainchild."

She raised an eyebrow and nodded. "So it is. To be sure, it's my scholars who've performed the necessary computations, but if it pleases him, let Caesar take credit for the calendar. Caesar should take credit for all his creations." She looked at the little boy on the grass.

I followed her gaze. "Such a handsome lad!" I said, though to me the child looked no different from any other.

"He looks like his father," said Cleopatra. "Everyone says so."

The child had a fuller head of hair than Caesar, but perhaps I could see a resemblance around the cheekbones and the chin. "He has his mother's eyes," I said. And then, feeling daring, I asked, "Will he be taking part in the triumph tomorrow?"

She looked at me for a long moment before she answered. "That's a delicate question. The whole matter of the Egyptian Triumph is . . . delicate. The role that should be played by myself, and by our son, has been discussed at some length." Discussed by herself and Caesar, she surely meant, despite her careful passive construction. Those discussions had not been pleasant, to judge by the way Apollodorus rolled his eyes, not realizing I was watching him.

"In the end—so it has been explained to me—a Roman triumph is a purely indigenous celebration," she said. "A Roman triumph has everything to do with military conquest and nothing to do with diplomacy . . . or dynasty. The Egyptian Triumph will celebrate Caesar's victory over my renegade brother, Ptolemy, who refused to make peace with me and who died in the Nile for his treachery. The Egyptian Triumph is about Roman arms, not about Caesar's . . . personal connection . . . to Egypt."

"But you were his ally in the war. He fought on your behalf."

She smiled without mirth. "He fought to make peace in Egypt, because our civil strife was disrupting the supply of Egyptian grain to Rome."

"So Your Majesty will
not
be appearing in the triumph?"

"According to Caesar, a triumph is performed by Romans, for Romans. Even the most distinguished persons of foreign birth can have no place in the procession . . . except as captives."

I nodded. "They say your sister Arsinoë will be paraded in chains. I don't think any female of royal blood has ever been marched as a captive in a triumph before."

"So
some
innovation is possible in a triumph, after all," Cleopatra said drily. "Arsinoë dared to raise troops against me. She deserves her fate."

"But she's can't be more than nineteen. She was even younger, then."

"Nonetheless, she and her confederate, Ganymedes, will both be paraded as captives and put to death."

"Ganymedes?"

"Her tutor."

"A eunuch?" Most household attendants of the Ptolemies were castrated.

"Of course. After Arsinoë put to death her general Achillas, Ganymedes took over command of her troops, such as they were."

I shook my head. "Caesar's grand captives will be a teenaged girl and a eunuch? I'm not sure what the Roman people will make of that. I suspect they would have been far more impressed by the sight of you, Your Majesty, perhaps riding in state atop a giant sphinx."

She smiled, pleased by the suggestion. "What an imagination you have, Gordianus-called-Finder! Alas, Caesar did not possess such a vision. The triumph will celebrate
his
victories in Egypt. Although I was his collaborator and the beneficiary of those victories, I shall not take part."

"And neither shall Caesar's son?"

Apollodorus shuddered and shook his head reflexively. I had broached a topic that must have caused much heated debate between Caesar and the queen, perhaps in this very spot in the garden.

Cleopatra scrutinized me for a long moment. She was displeased that I had brought up the subject, yet she was pleased that I had called the boy Caesar's son, without equivocation. "It has been decided that Caesarion will
not
ride in the chariot with his father tomorrow," she finally said.

Cleopatra was doing her best to hide her disappointment, but it seemed clear that one of the purposes of her diplomatic visit to Rome—perhaps the main purpose—had been to persuade Caesar to acknowledge her son. She had hoped to make the Egyptian Triumph a celebration of herself and Caesarion. It was easy enough to follow her reasoning. Why shouldn't the Romans be pleased that the heir to the Egyptian throne was a boy of Roman blood, the son of their own ruler? Should they not be impressed that Caesar had coupled with a woman who was the living heir of Alexander the Great, the latest representative of the world's most venerable dynasty, and the incarnation of a goddess?

I could also imagine why Caesar had balked at the idea. An open declaration of dynastic intentions was still too radical for the Roman people to accept, and an Egyptian queen of Greek blood, however regal, was still a foreigner, and an unsuitable mother for the children of a Roman noble. It might also be that Caesar had other plans for the future, and intended for someone other than Caesarion to be his heir.

For whatever reason, Caesar had refused to acknowledge Caesarion. Despite the opportunity presented by his Egyptian Triumph, Cleopatra had been thwarted. What now were her feelings toward Caesar?

It occurred to me that Caesar dead might now be more valuable to her than Caesar alive. The assassination of Caesar would plunge Rome into confusion, perhaps even another civil war. Amid the wreckage and the chaos, might Egypt drive out the Roman garrisons and cast off the Roman yoke?

Weighed against demands of state and her own ambition, any personal feelings she still harbored for Caesar might count for nothing. Cleopatra came from a long line of cold-blooded crocodiles who were notorious for devouring their own. Her older sister, Berenice, had usurped their father; when he regained the upper hand, their father put Berenice to death. Cleopatra had not shed a tear when her brother perished in their civil war. She now seemed to be looking forward to the impending humiliation and execution of her younger sister with grim satisfaction.

Was Cleopatra capable of plotting Caesar's death? Did she have sufficient motive to do so? I looked into her eyes and shivered, despite the stifling heat of the day.

XI

Unlike Vercingetorix, Arsinoë and Ganymedes were not being held in the Tullianum, but if all went according to plan, they would both end up there tomorrow, to be dispatched by the executioner.

Their quarters were located in the vast new complex housing Pompey's Theater on the Field of Mars. Calpurnia's messenger had given me instructions on how to find the place, but, wending our way among the shops and arcades and meeting halls, Rupa and I became completely turned around and found ourselves in the theater itself, with its countless semicircular tiers of seats surmounted by a temple to Venus. On the stage, a play was being rehearsed, no doubt one of the many scheduled to be performed as part of the ongoing festival that would follow Caesar's fourth and final triumph. Dramas, comedies, athletic competitions, chariot races in the newly expanded Circus Maximus, and mock battles on the training grounds of the Field of Mars—all this and much more had been announced. After so many months of deprivation and dread, Caesar intended to give the people of Rome a prolonged series of holidays full of feasting and every kind of public entertainment.

I regained my bearings and found the dedicated stairwell that led up, up, up to the topmost floor of the theater. Rupa and I came to a heavily guarded door, where I showed my pass. I expected Rupa to be kept behind, but, perhaps carelessly, the guards allowed us both to enter.

I never knew such a place existed—a private suite located behind the highest tier of seats and just beneath the Temple of Venus. Perhaps Pompey had built this aerie to be his personal hideaway, but its seclusion and limited access made it an ideal place to lock someone away. Its proximity to the Field of Mars, where Caesar's troops would muster for the triumph, would allow quick and secure delivery of the prisoners to their place in the procession.

The spacious room was sparsely but tastefully appointed, lit by windows along one wall. There was even a balcony with an expansive view of rooftops below and the winding Tiber and rolling hills beyond. The balcony was much too high to offer any means of escape.

Apparently, the princess had been allowed at least one servant while in captivity. An unusually tall, plain-faced lady-in-waiting appeared, wearing a shimmering robe with wide sleeves and a khat headdress that gathered her hair into a kind of pillow behind her head. She wore no makeup except for a few lines of kohl around her eyes.

"Who are you?" she said sharply, eyeing me with disdain and Rupa with something closer to alarm. Perhaps I looked sufficiently resolute and Rupa sufficiently brawny to pass for public executioners.

"You've nothing to fear from us," I said.

"Are you Romans?"

"Yes."

"Then my princess can expect nothing good from you."

"I assure you, we wish her no harm. My name is Gordianus. This is my son Rupa, who does not speak."

"I presume you come from Caesar? No one gets past those guards, unless they're sent by the king-killer himself." Obviously, her view of Caesar differed from that of Cleopatra; he was not the peacemaker who restored the throne to its rightful occupant but the man who had murdered one monarch, young Ptolemy, and was about to murder another.

"But that's not quite true, is it?" I said. "You've had at least one visitor who was not sent by Caesar, who gained admittance on his own initiative, to satisfy his curiosity and to show his sympathy, I imagine. I speak of my friend Hieronymus."

Her whole bearing changed. The stiff shoulders relaxed. The deep wrinkles of her face recombined into a smile. Her eyes sparkled. She clapped her bony hands together.

"Ah, Hieronymus! Your friend, you say? Then tell me, how is that charming fellow?"

I was struck by two things: the household of Arsinoë was ignorant of Hieronymus's death, and the lady before me was infatuated with him. Why not? She looked to be about the same age as Hieronymus. Indeed, with her long neck and narrow, homely features, she might have been his female counterpart.

"I'm afraid that's why I've come. I have some bad news for your mistress."

She responded with a guttural, very unladylike laugh. "Bad news? On this of all days, the day before— What news could possibly qualify as 'bad,' considering the fate that hangs over the princess?" She shook her head and glowered at me—setting the wrinkles into a new configuration—then suddenly raised her eyebrows and gasped. "Oh, no! You don't mean that something has happened to Hieronymus? Not dear Hieronymus, of all people?"

"I'm afraid so. But I would prefer to deliver the news directly to your mistress. Or perhaps to her minister, Ganymedes—"

Even as I said the name, so did someone else who had just entered the room. Over the lady's shoulder, stepping toward us through a doorway, I saw the princess Arsinoë.

"Ganymedes!" She was saying. "Ganymedes, who's that at the door? What do they want?"

I stared at the lady-in-waiting. I blinked. In an instant, the illusion created by my own assumptions melted away. I looked at the bony hands; the flesh was soft and had never known physical labor, but they were not a woman's hands. I looked at the throat and detected the telltale bump, like a tiny apple. I looked at the plain, wrinkled face and wondered how I could have been mistaken. The lady was no lady. It was Ganymedes the eunuch who stood before me.