Rutilius nodded. “And not only those Romans, Gordianus. In a single day, at a prearranged time, Mithridates plans to slaughter every Roman left in Asia. We are speaking not of thousands, but of many tens of thousands. All at once.”
I had known that something of this nature was afoot, but I had not imagined the scale of it. “How could such a thing be done? Does the king have enough soldiers in every town, every village-”
“The killing will not be done by soldiers,” said Rutilius. “Oh, in some instances, soldiers may lead or initiate the slaughter, and they’ll surely be called on to help dispose of the bodies, but most of the killing will be done by ordinary men and women, roused by the leaders of their communities to such a pitch of hatred that they’ll take up whatever weapons they possess-stones and sticks, if they have to-and murder every Roman they see. Men, women, children, the old-all of them. The next morning, there won’t be a Roman left alive in any part of the kingdom. It will be as if everyone woke up, and the Romans had simply vanished.”
“Except for the blood on the temple steps,” I said. “And the stench of the dead.”
“The blood will have been mopped up. The corpses will have been burned and buried, or taken to sea and dumped for Poseidon to swallow,” said Rutilius.
“Rome will never forgive such a slaughter,” I said. “The Senate and the people will demand vengeance.”
“Vengeance against whom? The killing will have been done not by armies but by ordinary people.”
“Then Rome will take vengeance on the people,” I said.
“And kill every person in Ephesus, and every other city that takes part in a massacre?”
“Yes. Kill or enslave them. Consul, you know that Romans never forgive, and they never forget. How many generations did the war against Carthage last? How many times did old Cato end every speech by saying, ‘Carthage must be destroyed’?”
Rutilius sighed. “I actually heard one of those speeches, when I was a boy.”
“And in the end, Cato got his way, though he didn’t live to see it. Carthage was destroyed, and all her people slaughtered or sold into slavery. This massacre won’t be the end of Roman oppression; it will only be the beginning, because Rome will never stop until every city that takes part is punished. You know what I say is true, Consul. A massacre of the Romans will be a disaster for the people of Ephesus.”
Rutilius bowed his head. “What you say is true, Gordianus. All the more reason that we must do something to stop this massacre.”
“But how?”
“Before the slaughter takes place, Mithridates must seek to appease the Kindly Ones. He will do so by sacrificing the virgin you spoke of, this girl called Freny. But such sacrifices are rare-so rare that the Grand Magus and the Great Megabyzus were at pains to determine exactly how and where it should take place, and were sometimes at odds with each other. The king thought to perform the ritual quickly and be done with it, but there was one delay after another as various requirements had to be met, including the participation of certain ‘witnesses,’ such as you. While the ritual was repeatedly put off, planning for the massacre carried on, so that now the king is hard-pressed to offer the sacrifice before the massacres are committed. Only a handful of men across the kingdom know the exact date for the massacres-I do not-but it must be very soon now.”
“So the sacrifice will take place, and poor Freny will die, and then … the massacre of the Romans,” I said. “But how are we to stop any of this from taking place?”
There was a rapping at the door. It was gentle, but it startled me even so.
The consul’s face brightened. “Once all of us are here, the situation shall be made clear to you, Gordianus.”
“‘All of us’?”
After an exchange of coded knocks, the consul indicated to Zeuxidemus that he could open the door.
A tall, slender man stepped inside, dressed much like Rutilius in a plain tunic and good shoes. For a moment I didn’t recognize him without his yellow robes and headdress. It was none other than the Great Megabyzus. His long, gray-streaked hair was pulled back from his face and tied behind his head. Without his priestly robes and the severe expression that went along with them, he looked quite ordinary. He gave me a faint smile of recognition.
Another man followed him into the room, a graybeard who furtively ducked his head so that I couldn’t see his face. At last he looked up, and our eyes met. He looked as if he might faint from astonishment.
It was Antipater.
XXIX
Antipater stared at me with his jaw hanging open. Slowly, the deep furrows of his brow turned upward and his gaping mouth formed an uncertain smile.
“Gordianus!” he whispered.
“So the two of you do know each other,” remarked the consul, “just as Samson said.”
A part of me longed to embrace Antipater. Instead, I took a step back. In the small room, I could retreat no farther.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What is the Great Megabyzus doing here? Isn’t he the very man we’re hiding from?”
“Perhaps I should speak,” said Samson, “since it was I who brought us all together. And I’m the only one here who knows the true name of everyone in the room.”
The six of us stood roughly in a circle. I looked from face to face, beginning with Samson to my left hand, and then to Zeuxidemus, who stood closest to the door, then to the newcomers Antipater and the Great Megabyzus, and finally to Rutilius.
The Great Megabyzus flashed a wry smile. “Even I have a name. I suppose, in these circumstance, I might as well use it. When I take off my robes and headdress, my family and friends call me Kysanias.”
Samson gave Kysanias a respectful nod. “Except for me, every man here, in one role or another, will take part in the sacrifice at the Grove of the Furies-yes, let’s use their true name, and no more talk of ‘Kindly Ones.’ This long-delayed sacrifice will take place…?”
“Tomorrow night, an hour after sundown,” said Kysanias.
Samson nodded. “If the sacrifice goes well, then the massacre of the Romans will follow very soon thereafter. We assume that the date for the massacre has already been set, since such a thing must necessarily require a great deal of planning. No one in this room knows the exact date-not even Kysanias-but we know it must be very soon. Therefore-”
Antipater cleared his throat. In a thin, rasping voice, he said, “I believe that I know the date.”
I was so pleased to hear him speak that I hardly heard what he said. The sound of his voice made me smile. Antipater possessed a highly trained voice, as skilled as that of any orator or actor, capable of many inflections, for a great poet must be able to speak in the voice of a young girl or an old crone or a heroic warrior, or even a god, and no poet was a more versatile reciter than Antipater. Yet, ironically, his own voice, his normal speaking voice, was rather high and not entirely pleasing to the ear. Still, just to hear it made my heart beat faster. No matter how strange the circumstances, I was at last gazing at Antipater in the flesh and could see that he was indeed alive, if not looking as well as I had hoped. Was it the harsh light of the lamps, casting shadows across his furrowed face, that made him look so haggard?
It was only from the startled reactions of all the others that I realized what Antipater had just said. I stared at him as I spoke. “Teacher, is this true? You know the date of the massacre?”
He stared back at me. Surrounded by the others, we could hardly react to the sight of each other in a normal way, and certainly could not say all that needed to be said. When Antipater spoke, I felt like laughing and crying at once, for here was the eloquent poet, never at a loss for words, seeming to stumble over every sentence.