The crier reached the end of his recitation of the crimes of the Aquillii, but by this time I was no longer listening. My attention was focused entirely on the red-hot crucible, the rack, and the heap of gold. What in the name of Hades was about to take place on that stage?
The slaves used a long-handled shovel to scoop up the coins and pour them into the crucible. At the same time, Bastarna dragged Aquillius to the rack and bound him to it in such a way that the Roman was made to kneel with his arms outstretched and his head bent back, his eyes staring upward. Into his gaping mouth Bastarna inserted a hollow bit. Into this cavity Bastarna inserted a large funnel.
It now became evident to everyone what was about to happen, including Aquillius, who began to scream, or at least to scream as best he could with the bit and the funnel shoved into his mouth. The sound that came out sounded strained and distant, like the squeak of a mouse. From the side of the stage his fellow Roman, Quintus Oppius, stared in wide-eyed horror. Mithridates smiled. Queen Monime leaned forward to get a better view.
A strange noise arose from the many-tiered seats behind me. It was like the roar of the sea heard inside a shell-all those screams and jeers and laughs and gasps melded into a sort of sigh, like an intake of breath, or the hissing of wind in tall grass. It was not so loud that the voice of Mithridates could not be heard above it as he rose from his throne and began to speak.
“People of Pergamon, you are the witnesses to this act of justice. As he has lived by greed-committed crimes, killed the innocent, corrupted all those around him for the sake of greed-let this Roman die by greed. Look at him there, with his mouth gaping open. Even now, he hungers for gold! Shall we satisfy his craving? Shall we feed him the gold?”
The crowd of ten thousand roared their assent.
With three slaves managing the long handle, the scoop was inserted into the tilted crucible, and then withdrawn, brimming with molten gold. Bastarna strode forth and took hold of the long handle, waving the others aside. He carried the scoop to the rack and positioned the molten contents directly above the funnel fitted into Aquillius’s gaping mouth. Aquillius’s staring eyes were so wide I thought they might pop from their sockets. His mouse-squeal of a scream rose even higher. He clenched and unclenched his bound fists, and wriggled his body as much as he could within the constraints of his bondage.
Bastarna held the scoop in place, but it was Mithridates who took hold of the end of the handle and gave it a turn, so that the contents were emptied into the funnel.
What happened then-
It is this moment that haunts my nightmares. I feel the heat of the crucible on my face. I smell the burning flesh and the sizzling blood. I hear the popping and exploding of the vital organs inside Aquillius. Behind me I hear the din of the crowd, a bellowing roar filled with hate.
Every part of Aquillius convulses in agony. Unable to bear the sight, I turn about, only to confront ten thousand faces contorted with fury and derision.
In my nightmare, I look from face to face, but they are all the same. Not one shows the slightest hint of pity or revulsion. Are these the people whom I dreamed of saving from the Romans?
I turn back, and on the stage I see Mithridates with his arms raised and a smug smile on his face. He has put on a show for the people, and the people love it. Their roar of hatred for Rome gradually turns to cheering, becoming a roar of adoration for their Shahansha, their King of Kings. Is this the man for whom I became a liar and a spy, for whom I sacrificed everything, even my name?
I lower my face and cover my ears, unable to bear the sights and sounds around me. When I dare to look up again, I see Queen Monime staring back at me, her pretty mouth misshapen by a scowl of contempt.
[Here ends this fragment from the secret diary of Antipater of Sidon.]
IV
It was Bethesda’s idea that we should consult a fortune-teller before our departure for Ephesus. Indeed, she insisted on it.
How Bethesda chose this particular fortune-teller, I didn’t know. I had never heard of the woman, despite my network of contacts among the lowlifes and shady characters of Alexandria. Yet somehow Bethesda had chosen this fortune-teller above all others, and insisted that only she would do. I sometimes think there is a secret web, invisible to men, that links all the women of the world.
However that may be, very early on the morning we were to board ship, when a soft light pervaded the sky but the sun had not yet risen, and pockets of pitch-dark night still darkened doorways and the space between buildings, I found myself in a narrow street in the Rhakotis district, the oldest part of Alexandria. Before Alexander drew the boundaries for the great city that would bear his name, and laid out its grid of broad boulevards intersecting at right angles, Rhakotis was a ramshackle fishing village on a barren stretch of coast. Unlike the rest of the city that grew up around it, Rhakotis remains a network of narrow, winding alleyways, so mazelike that a visitor can easily become lost. Rhakotis seems quaint when one visits by daylight, but dangerous after dark.
Rhakotis reminds me of the Subura district in Rome, but is much more cosmopolitan. In the Subura, the stranger who might offer to sell you stolen goods, or invite you to have sex with his sister, or knife you in the back, is almost certain to be a Roman and to speak Latin, but in Rhakotis such a fellow might come from anywhere in the world, have skin of a color never seen in Rome, and speak any of a hundred different languages. The Subura, for all its seedy reputation, seems a rather tame and homey place compared to the exotic seep of vice and menace that is Rhakotis.
The alley down which we ventured that morning was particularly winding and narrow, and stank of cat urine. We arrived at a squat, mud-brick building with a black door upon which was carved the Egyptian symbol called an ankh. Here, according to Bethesda’s information, we would find a fortune-teller called Ameretat. The name sounded neither Greek nor Egyptian; perhaps it was Persian. I knocked on the door. In the predawn stillness, the noise sounded very loud.
The door seemed to open by itself, for I saw no one on the other side. Then I lowered my eyes and perceived a small, shadowy figure no taller than my waist. The child-though I could not see him clearly, I presumed it was a little boy-took a good look at both of us, then without a word let us in.
“Follow,” he said, in a high-pitched but peculiarly husky voice. He carried a small lamp, which provided the only illumination as he led us down a hallway so narrow I banged my elbows against the walls. The place had a peculiar smell, a mixture of incense and stewed onions. We came to a room at the back of the building where the shutters of a high window had been opened to admit the first feeble light of morning. The boy told us to sit, which we did on the rug beneath us, since the room had no furniture. Because she sat on the floor below the window, with the light in her visitors’ eyes, the woman before us appeared as little more than a patch of gray against a field of black. At least I presumed the patch of gray to be a woman, though thus far she had not said a word.