“Where he seized and then brandished a weapon at my men.”
“But he was very quickly disarmed-”
“The Roman armed himself in blatant defiance of the king’s decree. The punishment must be carried out at once. Should I fail to do so, I would be defying the will of the king. As would anyone who made any effort to thwart this execution.”
These last words were clearly meant to silence Zeuxidemus, but he would not be stifled. “The Great Megabyzus himself showed mercy to this man, only yesterday. You were there. Do you not remember?”
“I do. Had that angry crowd been left to deal with this piece of Roman filth then and there-instead of seeing him rewarded by the Great Megabyzus with all the food he could carry-we wouldn’t have had to face this unpleasantness today. Now, then-you men, hold the Roman fast, so that your dishonored comrade can dispatch him at once.”
Zeuxidemus stood by helplessly, as did I. The Roman crowd, including the man’s wife and child, stayed behind the marker by the road. Not one of them dared to step outside the sacred precinct, but many began to weep and cry out as the captive was forced to his knees. The man’s wife would have run to him, but others restrained her. One of the soldiers pulled the Roman’s head back by a fistful of hair, baring his throat. From the Roman’s lips I heard a frantic babble-a curse on Mithridates, a desperate plea to Artemis.
The soldier with the knife strode forward and drew back his arm. With a single motion he cut the Roman’s throat. A ghastly sound came from the man’s open mouth, then a torrent of blood gushed from the gaping wound, cascading onto his filthy toga. He jerked horribly as the men held him in place, then became still. The man holding him by the hair released his grip, and the Roman’s head slumped forward. His eyes were still open, staring lifelessly at nothing.
The man’s wife began to wail. She fell to her knees, dropped the child, and began to tear at her tangled red hair.
Zeuxidemus made a noise of dismay. The captain looked at him sidelong and grunted. “How can one of you lot be so squeamish, priest? For the glory of the goddess you can kill one bleating beast after another, until blood clogs the gutters of the altar, yet you blanch to see a man put to death-and a filthy Roman, at that!”
“The man should at least be given the proper rites,” said Zeuxidemus in a hollow voice.
“Funeral rites? For this scum?” The captain laughed. “You men, drag his carcass to that trench over there and dump it inside. If any of his countrymen should wish to retrieve the corpse, they can step outside the sacred precinct to do so. Otherwise, he can rot in that ditch and be eaten by maggots.”
After this was done, the spear-bearers reformed the cordon around Zeuxidemus and me. As we strode past the ditch, I glanced at the body of the Roman, lying twisted and crumpled amid the muddy soil. I thought of all the trenches being dug just beyond the perimeter of the sacred grounds, and suddenly imagined them full with corpses-not merely filled but overflowing, heaped with dead bodies. The vision was so startling, so real, I seemed for a moment to glimpse the future.
It was then that I knew without a doubt what Mithridates intended to do with the Romans who had been driven from Ephesus, though how he meant to accomplish such a vast slaughter I could not imagine.
What of all the other Romans still trapped in the cities and villages conquered by Mithridates? They numbered in the tens of thousands. Surely the king did not intend to kill them all, I thought, as we hurried past the trench and on to the city gate.
XXVI
The chamberlain met me as soon as I arrived at the palace. He took me to the dining hall, where I was given a meal of bread and dates, which I consumed like a starving man. Then he escorted me back to my quarters. I was surprised, and happily so, to see no one in the room but Bethesda.
As soon as the chamberlain closed the door, I took her in my arms.
“But where are the other two?” I whispered in her ear.
“Gnossipus and Damianus were given their own room,” she said.
“Do you mean we’re alone?”
“Yes.”
What followed involved no words. My longing for her was as sharp as a nettle, as sweet as honey. The room seemed too small to contain it. There was no piece of furniture or bit of floor or wall against which we did not make love in one position or another. How long this went on, I couldn’t say, as time seemed to have fled from that room.
There was a bowl of fruit and a pitcher of water on a small table, and from time to time we paused to eat and drink. Even during these moments of rest, we said little, and I never spoke above a whisper, fearful of being overheard by some listener at the door. We seemed to be alone, but occasionally I wondered if someone might be spying on us through a hidden peephole. What a show we gave them, if that were so! But there was never any indication, afterward, that anyone saw or heard anything that transpired in that room. I think we truly were alone all through that languid morning and lazy afternoon.
From time to time, in the heat of passion, I imagined it was Amestris with whom I was making love; the music of her voice and the beauty of her face were vivid in my memory. But thoughts of Amestris led to thoughts of doomed Freny, and to memories of my dream of Artemis the night before, and I would shake myself and open my eyes and gaze at the woman I was with-no phantom or goddess or memory, but Bethesda, who to my eyes was more beautiful than any other. What a lucky man I was to hold in my arms the treasure I valued above all others!
As the day waned and the dinner hour approached, I told Bethesda, in bits and pieces, and always in a whisper, what had happened to me after she and the others departed from the temple grounds and I was left in the care of Zeuxidemus. When I mentioned the appearance of Samson, her eyes widened ever so slightly. If I sometimes imagined Amestris when I was with Bethesda, did she sometimes imagine Samson, or some other man? As soon as that thought occurred to me, I strove to banish it. Such thoughts never lead to anything good.
When I told her about our visit to the house of Eutropius, I left out Amestris entirely. The doom laid on the young virgin slave of Anthea’s-so I described Freny-was poignant enough without including the anguish of her older sister.
“Why always a slave?” was Bethesda’s comment. “If her mistress also is still a virgin, would she not be more suitable? Surely the life of the daughter of a powerful citizen is of more value than the life of a mere slave, and so would be more pleasing to those who receive the sacrifice?” I noticed that she avoided mentioning the Furies by name.
“I don’t think that’s the way it works,” I whispered. “If you could have seen the queen’s face…”
“Describe to me again what she was wearing.”
Thus did Bethesda lead me into digressions of more interest to her than to me, interrupting the thought I was about to express: that Monime somehow (through spies?) must have learned of the king’s attraction to Freny, and had used her influence to convince the Great Megabyzus and the Grand Magus to choose Freny for the sacrifice. Thus the queen would get rid of the poor girl, presumably with the king himself being forced to watch while the object of his desire was slaughtered. What sort of mortals were this king and queen, to play such games with the lives of others?
Instead of sorting out these tangled thoughts, I was doing my best to recall the details of the queen’s clothing when Bethesda interrupted me. “The fortune-teller back in Alexandria!” she said. “She spoke of a virgin, did she not? A beautiful young virgin, in danger. That must be Freny. The fortune-teller also mentioned a sacrifice-yes, I’m sure of it. She even spoke of the wrath of…”
“The Furies,” I dared to whisper, at which Bethesda made some sort of sign, as if to protect herself from the Evil Eye. What did I recall of the fortune-teller’s rant? I had not taken her seriously at the time. Her advice had been to stay away from Ephesus, and I had ignored that advice. What else had she said? Suddenly I heard her voice in my head, almost as if she were in the room with us: