The way she said “Tribune” told him she knew exactly who he was, or rather who he was not. “Why are you helping me, Cleopatra?” he asked her, using the same tone on her name that she had used with him.
“Call me Cleo, mistress of the Sea Nymph,” she told him. “And who says I am helping you? I am helping John. My pleasure barge pays regular visits to Patmos. My girls service the guards, well, most of them. Some of the guards come aboard and slip my girls secret letters that we take to other ports of call.”
“Like this one?” Athanasius showed her the letter that John had given him.
She looked it over and then nodded. “Exactly. I was waiting to receive something like this from Cornelius before you assassinated Barbatio.”
“It wasn’t an assassination,” he insisted. “It was more of an accident.”
“Too bad. He terribly mistreats my girls. I was going to have to do the honors of serving him tonight until you spared me.”
Athanasius studied her as he pondered this unusual arrangement she had with the last apostle and his key leaders in Ephesus. “If you’ll pardon my asking, Cleo, why would a man like the last apostle trust you?”
“A whore?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “For the same reason he probably trusts you. I tell him what his bishops and acolytes won’t: the truth. Now you’ll have to trust me too. Quick, crawl under my ass.”
Athanasius cocked his ear to make sure he had heard correctly, then pulled back the veil of the litter slightly to see that they were entering the harbor. Night had fallen, and the torches were lit. Cornelius, awake and alert now, barked orders for the ranks to form lines. The last of the garrison’s pleasure seekers were quickly disembarking the Sea Nymph and putting on their helmets.
He dropped the curtain and looked at Cleo. Her knees were drawn up to her heaving bosoms, and she had pulled back the cushion underneath to reveal a secret compartment. It was only a Roman foot or so deep but ran the length of the litter and was wide enough for him to crawl in and lie flat. She then rolled the cushion back and sat on him.
“Easy does it, my slaves,” he heard her call out.
The litter stopped. Then came the sound of approaching boots and a voice.
“Madame, you are safe,” said a loud voice, which he recognized as belonging to Cornelius. Perhaps he was playing to the troops. “There has been a tragedy. Commander Barbatio has been assassinated.”
“Have you found the assassin?”
“We are turning the island over now. We have a centurion from the assassin’s ship who can identify him. The captain refuses to help.”
“Have you searched my ship? My girls could be in danger. I won’t board until you’ve searched it from top to bottom.”
“Search the whore barge!” Cornelius shouted, and Athanasius heard the thunder of boots going up the gangway to the boat.
There were holes in the bottom of the litter, through which Athanasius could see the ground and breathe quietly, but not without some struggle. Cleo had made a good play. The troops were bound to search the ship at some point. Better now than after he was on board.
A short time later there was more thunder as the troops came back down the gangway, and a voice said, “I have searched the whore ship from top to bottom, sir. There is nobody but the whores and crew on board.”
“Very well,” said the voice of Cornelius, and as the sound of boots faded away he addressed Cleo. “Such a tragedy, Madame.”
“Yes, it is,” she said in a droll tone. “Barbatio hadn’t consummated our deal, and my girls only serviced the first round of the night. Barbatio had ordered five rounds. I expect to be paid in full. We made a special trip to Patmos. I have Nubian oarsmen, sailors and marines to pay, and girls to feed.”
The voice turned stern as it addressed Cleo, again, it sounded to Athanasius, for public consumption. “You will be content to leave with your lives and return at a later visit to finish our business and get paid. Now be gone, and take your whores with you.”
And with that Athanasius could see the stone of the quay give way to the wood of the gangway as the litter carrying him and Cleo was walked up to the deck. Minutes later he crawled out of his secret hold and stood at the rail of the Sea Nymph gazing back upon the dark waters. The black cutout of Patmos slowly began to fade into the night until it disappeared.
“Oooh, how it must hurt, Pharaoh.”
Seated on a small divan in Cleo’s private cabin aboard the Sea Nymph, Athanasius tried to relax as a girl named “Nefertiri” bathed his cuts in oils, dabbing them gently with a cloth. She seemed genuinely concerned for each and every scratch, blowing on and kissing them.
She offered him wine. “Medicine for your stomach, Great One, as we cruise the Nile on your royal barge?”
Athanasius, recalling his last experience with wine offered to him from Galen aboard the Pegasus, was inclined to decline, but took a small sip anyway, his bones and muscles feeling crushed and not wanting to spoil this little fantasy Nefertiri had created.
Then Cleo spoke from the door in Greek. “Phyllis, back to your quarters.”
Phyllis sheepishly scooped up her assorted comfort potions and tools, then bowed before him and Cleo. She smiled at Athanasius on her way out.
Cleo entered and poured herself a cup of the wine. “Cornelius will see to it that the logs on Patmos will show that the Sea Nymph is going to Alexandria. But first we’ll stop at Ephesus for you. We’ll anchor offshore, and you can go in by boat. You will have to watch yourself going in. I think your Pegasus will beat us with its two additional decks of oars. Consider your career as a tribune over for now. You will have to put away your costume.”
Athanasius nodded. He knew as much. “I don’t suppose you have any other disguises for a man in my position?”
“Wigs, beards and dyes for your hair, too,” she said as she drank her wine. “Everything you could want. We could even make you a woman, although I’m afraid you might draw even more unwanted attention from some men than you already have with the assassination of Barbatio. I can’t imagine old John is happy with you. You must be somebody special if he trusts you.”
“He doesn’t trust me,” Athanasius said. “He thinks I’m a spy from the Dei sent to destroy the Church.”
At the mention of the Dei the blood drained from Cleo’s face and her hand holding her cup froze in mid-air. For a wild moment Athanasius worried he had said the wrong thing and might not reach Ephesus after all. Women like Cleo could be quite cunning, and she did have a deck full of Nubian strongmen at her call. But instead she laughed and put the cup down, then lay on top of him on the bed.
“I can look into your eyes and tell that you are not one of them.”
“And how is that?” Athanasius asked, shifting beneath her.
“You don’t have the empty, dead eyes of the Dei that are devoid of any humanity.”
Athanasius could see that he didn’t have to worry about her killing him, although he did begin to worry about where this evening in bed was going. He could only think of Helena, and how important to his survival it was to hold onto his hatred of Domitian and Ludlumus. To let up for even a moment might deprive him of the full venom he needed. “So you know the Dei?”
Cleo nodded soberly. “Who do you think runs the church in Ephesus?”
Athanasius bolted upright in her bed. “You’re lying now.”
She sat back, startled. “I thought that is why John is sending a man like yourself, to do what his acolytes in the Church cannot and smoke out the Dei.”
“Who told you that the Dei was evil?” he pressed her. “I thought the Dei defended The Way and the helpless, and only attacked Roman power.”
She said, “The Dei preys on the weak and helpless, on the least of these, to make itself more powerful. And it has compromised the church in Ephesus.”