“I approached my father again, and again he made his feelings clear. I was to have nothing to do with the girl or with her children. Yet, over the years, I felt obliged to give her a bit of money now and then. From time to time I saw the children as they grew up on the streets of Alexandria, wild and untamed-”
“We did the best we could,” snapped Artemon, gritting his teeth, “and so did our mother.” Axiothea tightened her embrace and hid her face against her brother’s chest.
“Be that as it may,” said Tafhapy, “with every year that passed, it became less and less possible that I could ever proclaim my paternity of such children. I lived in one world, they in another. Yet I knew who they were, and I think they knew who I was, for I had seen their mother pointing me out to them when my litter passed in the street.”
“Oh, yes, we knew who you were,” said Artemon. “The father who begot and then abandoned us. Tafhapy the Terrible, your business rivals call you. The words had a different meaning when our mother spoke them. How we hated and despised you, and everything you stood for.”
“Alas, and who could blame you?” said Tafhapy, unable to look Artemon in the eye. “At some point, I no longer saw your mother on the corner where she used to beg-”
“Because she died!” snapped Artemon. “Sick and miserable, her life destroyed by you!”
“So I presumed. In fact, I thought that all three of you must have died, for I no longer saw you or your sister. All three of you seemed to vanish. I put away my memories of you. In time, I thought no more about you. Until…”
Tafhapy sobbed and caught his breath. “Until that day a year ago when I chanced to see a mime troupe performing in the street, and called my litter bearers to a halt so that I might watch. Among the players I noticed a beautiful young girl. There was something terribly familiar about her. Then I realized who she was. My daughter! ‘Flee! Get away from her!’ cried a voice in my head, and I almost called on the bearers to take me away. Then I realized that the voice I heard was that of my father-my father, who is now dead and no longer controls my life. ‘You fool!’ I said to myself. ‘You’ll never have another child. Forget what your own father wanted, and lay claim to your children!’”
Tafhapy gazed fondly at Axiothea. “I made myself known to her. She rebuffed me at first, but I persisted. Little by little I’ve sought to gain her trust. I seek to do so still.”
“People thought she must be your lover,” I said.
“Let them think what they will. Artemisia prizes her freedom and independence and the life she’s made for herself, but as soon as she agrees, I intend to legally claim her as my daughter and make her my heir. I longed to do the same for Artemon, but when I asked her where her brother might be, she told me he’d vanished from Alexandria years ago. She had no idea what had become of him or where he’d gone.” Tafhapy shook his head. “I had no idea … I never imagined … that the man they call the Cuckoo’s Child, the king of the Delta bandits … is my son!”
I looked from father to son, from brother to sister, from daughter to father. I shook my head. “So it came to pass that Artemon, without knowing it, attempted to kidnap his own sister and demand ransom from his own father!”
All eyes turned to Artemon, who stared back at us defiantly. “The idea for the kidnapping began with the Jackal-”
“The man your sister knows as Lykos,” I said.
Axiothea raised her eyebrows. “Lykos the artificer?”
The king frowned and looked at Zenon, who explained in a whisper, “The man with a white stripe in his hair.”
The king nodded. “Ah yes, that fellow.”
“Very well, I’ll call him Lykos, if you prefer,” said Artemon. “On a visit to the Cuckoo’s Nest, he told me there was a beautiful girl in his Alexandrian mime troupe, called Axiothea-a name that meant nothing to me. Lykos said this girl had made herself the lover of a famously wealthy merchant called Tafhapy-a name I knew all too well, and despised. When Lykos suggested that we kidnap this actress and demand a ransom from her rich lover-never guessing that Tafhapy was secretly my father-I readily agreed. The money meant nothing to me, but the chance to subject the man I hated most in the world to a bit of misery-that was irresistible. Lykos arranged the kidnapping and hired the henchmen-who obviously took the wrong girl!” Artemon stared at Bethesda, who pressed herself close to me. “Now I understand why Tafhapy never responded to the ransom notes, and why you, Roman, came secretly looking for the girl.” He sighed and shut his eyes. “If only the kidnappers had taken the girl they were supposed to take-if only they had brought Artemisia to the Cuckoo’s Nest-I would have been reunited with my long-lost sister, and who knows what might have happened then?”
Tafhapy abruptly dropped to his knees. Humbly he approached King Ptolemy, shuffling forward across the stone floor. He clasped his hands beseechingly and gazed up at the king.
“Your Majesty! I came here today to save the life of a man who means nothing to me-this Roman called Gordianus. In your great wisdom and mercy, Your Majesty has seen fit to free him, and for that I thank you. But now I beg for the life of another, who until this hour I did not even know to be alive-my only son! I know he’s a notorious criminal, but whatever he may have done, I beg you, for my sake, spare his life!”
The king peered over his enormous belly at Tafhapy, who proceeded to fall onto all fours and abase himself amid the filthy straw. “Really, Tafhapy, you have no idea of the magnitude of your son’s betrayal, or the enormity of his crimes. He’s not just a thief and a murderer, but a traitor of the worst sort. His treachery has brought untold disaster upon me. There is no possibility of a pardon for his crimes, no possibility whatsoever!”
Zenon loudly cleared his throat.
The king wrinkled his brow. “What is it, Zenon?”
The chamberlain shrugged and made a succession of gestures, each more fawning than the last. “Your Majesty always knows best, and as you say, there can be no possible pardon for such a scoundrel-unless, of course…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless the party seeking such a pardon could offer a substantial amount of gold-not an amount equal to that which has been irretrievably lost as a result of Artemon’s treachery, for that would be impossible-but enough to pay for the king’s … shall we say … upcoming travel expenses.”
“You mean the cost of all the bribes, bodyguards, and baggage-carriers to get me out of Alexandria before Brother Soter arrives?”
“To put it bluntly, Your Majesty, yes, that is precisely what I mean.”
The king sighed. “And what would you estimate that amount to be?”
“Roughly speaking…” The chamberlain named a sum so staggering that every person in the room drew a sharp breath.
The king gazed at the groveling figure at his feet. “Well, Tafhapy, what do you say? Can you cough up that much money in the next couple of days? And is the life of your long-lost bastard worth such a sum?”
All eyes turned to Tafhapy. He remained on all fours but raised his head. He chewed his lower lip. His bristling eyebrows moved this way and that, expressing a succession of conflicting emotions.
“Well, father?” said Axiothea. She stared at Tafhapy and crossed her arms. “What do you say?”
Artemon also moved to cross his arms, but the chains prevented him. He had to be content with duplicating his sister’s cold stare. “Yes … father. Am I worth such a ransom?”
Tafhapy swallowed hard. “Give me until sundown tomorrow, Your Majesty. I think I can raise it by then.”
Axiothea burst into tears. Artemon shivered like a man with a fever; his hard features softened and he looked at his father with an expression I could not hope to fathom. Tafhapy, too, began to weep, and so did Djet. Caught up in the flood of emotions, Bethesda and I held each other tightly. Even the dour chamberlain looked pleased with himself.