“This woman…” I whispered. “This woman is Artemisia, your twin sister? And Tafhapy is the father of you both?”
The chamberlain struck his staff against the stone floor, demanding attention. “Get back from the prisoner, young woman! For your own safety-”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Axiothea gave Zenon a withering glance. “My brother would never harm me.”
From the sour look on his face, I could see that the chamberlain was as confused as I was. He was not a man who liked surprises. “Whatever relationship you may have with the Cuckoo’s Child, young woman, it is not the king’s reason for coming here. We will deal first with the business at hand. Tafhapy, you came to the king this morning to urgently plead for the release of this other prisoner, the Roman who calls himself Gordianus. Is this in fact the man you were referring to?” He pointed with his staff. I jerked back to stop him from poking my nose.
Looking dazed, Tafhapy glanced at me and nodded.
“You say this Gordianus came to you some time ago seeking information about his stolen slave-the girl with whom he was retrieved from the harbor.” At this bit of information, I saw Artemon’s eyes light up. “You say you put him on the trail of the Cuckoo’s Gang, and for a traveling companion you sent this slave boy with him. Is that correct?”
Tafhapy nodded.
“So when Gordianus tells us that his sole purpose in approaching the Cuckoo’s Gang was the retrieval of his property, he speaks the truth?”
“As far as I know,” whispered Tafhapy.
“However, there is a complicating factor,” said Zenon. “I thought the name ‘Gordianus’ sounded familiar, and sure enough, among the documents in my office there is a warrant for this man’s arrest issued by the city fathers of Canopus, accusing him of murder and theft. A ruby is said to be involved-”
“That’s a lie!” said Djet. “The Roman never killed or robbed anyone.”
“You speak out of turn, slave!” Zenon glared at Djet, who calmly looked up at him. The distraught Tafhapy seemed incapable of interceding, and for a long moment everyone in the cell witnessed the peculiar spectacle of a slave boy and a chamberlain of the king of Egypt engaged in a staring contest.
It was Zenon who finally blinked. “You traveled alongside this Roman? Speak, boy!”
“Day and night,” said Djet. “He’s the bravest man I ever met. He saved us from the Hungry Crocodile, then from the Friendly Hippopotamus! He got the best of Mangobbler, and made a friend of Cheelba the lion-”
“We are not interested in whatever menagerie you may have encountered in your travels. Did this man kill a Nabataean merchant in Canopus? Did he join the Cuckoo’s Gang? Did he take part in criminal acts?”
I held my breath. A moment before, it had seemed that Djet was my savior, having brought Tafhapy to plead on my behalf. Now, with a careless word, Djet might bring about my execution.
Djet squared his shoulders, stiffened his jaw, and put his hands on his hips. He spoke not to the chamberlain, but directly to the king, looking him in the eye. “It was the owner of the inn at Canopus who murdered the Nabataean, not the Roman. Yes, he pretended to join the Cuckoo’s Gang-that much is true. But he did so only to save his life and mine. His only purpose was to get back the girl who had been taken from him. He’s no more an outlaw and a bandit than I am!”
Zenon grunted. “So you say. But a character reference from a child, and a slave at that, is hardly-”
“Oh, stop this nonsense!” The king stepped forward. His sheer bulk obliged the chamberlain to move aside. “It’s obvious that the Roman is exactly what he says he is. You saw him with that slave girl yesterday, after we plucked them from the waves. Did they look like dangerous criminals? I think not, unless love is a crime.”
The chamberlain rolled his eyes. “Has Your Majesty considered that this Gordianus may be a spy, sent here by Rome?”
“Oh, I hardly think so, Zenon. And what if he is? The Romans are our friends, are they not? They keep offering to help me keep my throne, with only one catch-I must bequeath Egypt to the Roman Senate in my will, as Apion did with Cyrene! They have nerve, I’ll grant them that. No, no, when I look at this fellow I do not see a murderer or a spy.”
“Even if the Roman is no more or less than he appears to be, Your Majesty, in such a delicate matter, there are other considerations-”
“You will rescind the warrant for the Roman’s arrest, then release him and his slave girl at once, Zenon. Do you understand?”
The chamberlain sighed and bowed his head. “It shall be as Your Majesty decrees. Guard! Bring the key and remove the manacles from this prisoner. Then free the girl in the adjacent cell.”
He could only mean Bethesda. All night, she had been only a few feet away from me!
In a matter of moments, I was freed from my chains and able to stand, if a bit unsteadily. I rubbed my wrists where the manacles had chafed them. A moment later, Bethesda appeared at the doorway, then ran to my side.
“Bethesda, did they harm you?”
“No, Master. And you? Your wrists are all red and raw.”
“It doesn’t matter, now that you’re back-”
“Oh, do be quiet, the two of you, before I change my mind,” said the king. “Now, Tafhapy-if only for my amusement, you will explain your relationship to these other lovely young people. The girl there, clinging to the Cuckoo’s Child. Is her name Axiothea or is it Artemisia?”
Tafhapy’s jaw quivered. “Both. Her mother named her Artemisia, but years ago, when she first began to act, she took the stage name Axiothea. That’s how everyone knows her now.”
“And this young man, the notorious Cuckoo’s Child-is he her brother?”
“Her twin,” whispered Tafhapy.
“I see. Artemon and Artemisia, twin siblings. Yes, they do look a great deal alike. And you are their father?”
“I am.”
“By blood, perhaps,” growled Artemon, “but in no other way is that man my kin. I never had a father!”
The king pursed his lips. “What does he mean, Tafhapy? How did you come to father these children, and what is your relationship with them now? I command you to explain!”
Tafhapy drew his bristling eyebrows together. At first he spoke with difficulty, but then the words came out in a rush. “My son speaks the truth. How did I father these children, you ask? When I was young, my father grew anxious at my lack of interest in the opposite sex. He took me to the most expensive brothel in Alexandria, and so that I should not be put off by the jaded nature or the overripe allure of the woman I was paired with, he insisted that I be given a virgin-a girl even younger than myself, as it turned out. Somehow or other I managed to consummate the act, which pleased my father greatly but only confirmed to me that such a thing would never happen again.
“But that was not the end of the matter. A few months later, the girl came to see me. She told me that I had made her pregnant. You may wonder how a girl in her position could be so certain that I was the father. In fact, she was no mere slave, and not strictly speaking a whore. She was the daughter of a freed man who was in terrible straits, and her one and only experience at the brothel had occurred on the night of my visit. By various means I ascertained that her story was not only credible, but almost certainly true. Her manner was so humble and sincere that I had no cause to doubt her.
“I told my father what had happened and I suggested that I should marry the girl. To me it seemed a readymade solution to my father’s insistence that I must marry and beget grandchildren for him. But my father told me not to be absurd, that to marry a girl in such sordid circumstances was out of the question.
“A few months later, unmarried and destitute, the girl gave birth not to one child, but two. She contrived to visit me and brought the twins with her. When I saw them, any doubts about my paternity vanished. Look at my eyes, and then look at theirs. You’ll see the resemblance.