Demetrios Phalereus rubbed his chin. "I say, Chares, I think you have something! Remember our agreement, however. Go your way, and in due course you shall hear of the outcome of your proposal."
I finished the bust of Ptolemaios, drilled with my catapult crew, and quarreled with Amenardis. These quarrels reached a pitch where the landlord of my little apartment threatened to throw us out if we did not stop disturbing his other tenants.
One of our sources of discord was my refusal to take Amenardis along when I dined with Greek friends. She refused to believe that among Hellenes it simply wasn't done. When I carefully explained that it was a compliment to her to omit her, as a Hellene would bring with him a woman of only the lowest class, she remarked:
"I always know Greeks dirty, faithless, immoral people. Now I find out they also cruel to their women. Should come to Egypt to be civilized."
I also killed much time with Onas and Berosos in the drink shops of Alexandria. When not worrying about our friends and dear ones in Rhodes (which, Python said, still stood) or weighing the complications of our personal lives, we engaged in the great Alexandrian sport of gossip.
We heard about the king's women, for instance. He had four: two wives, Eurydike and Berenike; an ex-wife, Artakama; and a mistress, Thai's. All dwelt in Alexandria, and the amiable monarch somehow managed to keep on good terms with all of them.
There was also gossip about the king's eldest legitimate son, Ptolemaios called "Thunderbolt." *(* Keraunos or Ceraunus.) (Leontiskos, captured by Demetrios Antigonou at Cyprus, was a son by Thai's and hence illegitimate.) Thunderbolt was a wild, violent, cruel, and gloomy stripling who, it was said, had already murdered several people for the fun of it. It is not surprising that the king chose a younger son, also named Ptolemaios, as his successor, when he resigned the throne a little before his death a few years ago.
When this happened, Thunderbolt, fearing to be brought to book for his crimes, fled from Egypt. He murdered old Seleukos the Victorious, who was so foolish as to befriend him, and seized the throne of Macedonia. Now, within the last month, I am told, he has been slain in a battle with the invading Kelts when he somehow fell off his war elephant into the midst of the foe.
Then, one day in the month of Poseideon, Python appeared at muster with his long narrow face split by a smile. He called an officers' meeting after dismissal.
"Well, boys, we have made it at last," he said. "Thanks to my persistence and powers of persuasion, the king has decided to help us. He can spare us, he says, few soldiers, but he will send three hundred thousand medimnoi of wheat and other foodstuffs. Now we can sail for home as soon as winter breaks."
We cheered our captain—I, a little ironically. Later the same day I returned to my quarters to find Berosos in converse with Amenardis. The Babylonian said:
"O Chares, have you heard of the king's wonderful plan for a universal library? Strange it is that no potentate has thought of it hitherto! They say that Demetrios Phalereus first broached the idea."
I said nothing, because of my promise to Demetrios Phalereus and my knowledge of the harm he could do my city if I betrayed him. However, as he and his king are now dead, I do no wrong by revealing my part in the instigation of the great Library of Alexandria.
Elaphebolion came on; shipping began to revive. The crew of the Halia, trained to a fine pitch, looked forward to their homecoming, even though it might mean battle and death. I think we could have returned to Rhodes more promptly than we did, and that Python's affected concern for the safety of his ship was a mask for his higher esteem of his own precious skin.
My relations with Amenardis had gone smoothly for several days; so smoothly, in fact, that I suspected that something was amiss. Then, one evening, she beset me over dinner:
"Chares, I think."
"Yes, dear?"
"You say I cannot go with you to Rhodes, so I must stay here or go to some other dirty Greek place. You no think enough. I have the answer."
"Well?"
"You not go back to Rhodes. You and I go on ship together to Kôs."
"What? Dear Herakles, woman, are you suggesting that I desert my city?"
"What difference? One Greek city just like another. You take me to Kôs, make statues there. Or if you know other city not in siege, we go there. No more war, no more being afraid of Tis."
"Listen, my dear. If Tis had been going to do anything to us, he'd have done it by now. And while I don't claim to be nobler than Kodros, nobody has accused me of disloyalty to my city, and I don't intend to begin now. So forget your clever little plan."
"If you love me, you do this. Ship leave tomorrow; the Amphitrite of Halikarnassos. Easy; put on false beard—"
"Go walk! I won't, and that's that!"
"Stupid boy! I know better than you what good for us ..."
Off we went again. In the end I slammed out and got drunk in taverns. I remember boasting in my cups, in a place run by a fat, dirty Hellene in the western part of town, of my great artistic ambitions. Then I fell asleep in a corner.
I awakened to the sound of a voice saying in a strong Egyptian accent: "Is this the man?"
My guardian spirit warned me not to start up. As I lay, shamming, the voice of the taverner said:
"He said his name is Chares, and anybody can tell he's a Rhodian from his speech."
"Aye," said the first voice. "He fits."
I opened one eye a slit. Three hard-looking knaves, with blades in their hands, were peering at me by the light of a single taper that my host, standing to one side, held aloft. Otherwise the shop was dark and quiet. I could not tell in the dimness if these were men I had seen before in connection with Tis of Hanes, but that was a minor detail.
"I want no blood shed in here," said the taverner.
"All right, we will rap him on the sconce and carry him out. Here is your money—"
I set both feet against the edge of the narrow table behind which I lay and pushed with all my might. The table flew over against the thieves, who sprang back with oaths to avoid it. Before they could recover, I was up and at the taverner, knife in hand.
This traitor had not taken the precaution of arming himself. He backed away with a cry, trying to fend me off with his left hand. Quick as a leopard, I dodged past his hand and sank my knife in his flesh. He screamed and dropped the taper, which went out.
In the instantaneous blackness that descended upon that shop, I barked my shin on a bench in trying to reach the door. However, I reached it a digit ahead of the clutching hands of my would-be murderers. Once outside, I filled my lungs and ran for my life through the moonlit streets. At every corner I took a turn, now this way and now that Soon the footsteps of my pursuers faded away.
Then I found myself lost. The tavern stood on the edge of Rhakotis, the native quarter of Alexandria, and in my flight I had plunged into the winding alleys of this region. When the moon set, navigation became impossible.
I therefore found a nook in a vacant lot, whence I could see the approaches without easily being seen. There I sat shivering (for I had lost my cloak) through the long hours after midnight, while the countless cats of Rhakotis gamboled and quarreled about me and sang sad threnodies to the wheeling stars.
Towards dawn I fell asleep, with the result that I missed muster. With four heads instead of one, I returned home from a wigging by Python, ready to admit that I had been wrong about Tis's harmlessness. At my lodgings I found an indignant landlord with another complaint about my noisy home life, but no Amenardis.