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The Princess and the Pirates(20)

By:John Maddox Roberts


“Let it be on your head,” Silvanus said. “But, mark me, she will desert you in action or bring about some other mischief.”

I found the lady herself waiting in my quarters when we got back to the mansion of Silvanus. She was dressed in a nondescript gown and behind her, as always, stood Apollodorus. With her was the merry-faced young poet, Alpheus.

“They’ve just arrived,” Hermes said. He had reached the house ahead of us. “The princess says you have a previous engagement.”

“Engagement?”

“Don’t you remember?” Cleopatra said. “We are going out to the Andromeda to hire ex-pirates!” She smiled like a delighted child.

“I let it slip my mind. Anyway, I probably have more than we need. You should see the pack of villains I hired today.”

“I’ll bet you hired none who admitted to his old trade,” Alpheus said. “And now they’ve taken your oath, they’ll never own up to it.”

“Come on,” Cleopatra insisted, “join us. It will be far more fun than another drunken banquet.”

“I like drunken banquets,” I told her. “But since I agreed already, I’ll go along.” Actually, I didn’t remember setting a specific date for this venture, but lapses of memory were nothing new to me.

“Good!” she cried, all but clapping her hands with glee. She stood and Apollodorus wrapped her in a voluminous cloak and drew its cowl over her head. Doubtless this suited her sense of drama, but it was not necessary. In plain dress and without her extravagant jewelry, she looked like any other lively Greek girl; attractive but not strikingly so, and with no visible clues as to her royal ancestry. I have noticed on many occasions that royalty often fancy that some look sets them apart from other mortals, as if their flesh shed golden rays, but I have never found this to be so.

I sent word to my host that urgent business called for my presence elsewhere and went out into the deepening dark with a pair of slaves, a poet, and the future queen of Egypt in search of the lowest sailor’s dive in town.

The Andromeda was located near the docks, in a narrow street of low, single-story buildings, most of them devoted, in one way or another, to the maritime trade: warehouses, chandler’s shops, the houses of ship-wrights and sailmakers, and, naturally, sailors’ taverns. We knew we had the right place by its sign: the ever-popular image of a beautiful naked woman chained to a rock.

Inside it was typical of all such places all over the world. The ceiling was low, the atmosphere was smoky from the many lamps, and the predominant smell was that of spilled wine. Along one wall ran a long counter that held amphorae of wine, their mouths gaping invitingly. Several long tables ran the length of the room, and in the corners were a few smaller tables. There were probably fifty or sixty men in the room, most of them recognizable as sailors by their caps and their pitch-stained tunics, along with a few women of questionable station in life.

“May I find you a table, sir?” The barmaid was a good-looking young woman with the well-developed arms and upper body of one who hoisted heavy jars and pitchers all day long.

“You may,” I said. “One of those corner tables, if you please.”

As we wended our way toward the rear of the room, curious eyes followed our progress. Although on military duty, I wore a nondescript tunic and plain sandals. Nonetheless, nobody would take me for anything other than a Roman. Besides my classically Roman face, nobody else in the world stands or walks like a Roman. It is something drilled into us by the legions and the rhetoric schools, which emphasize stance and movement as much as voice, and there is no disguising it. Even Hermes, though born a slave of questionable ancestry, shared this bodily attitude, bestowed by his upbringing in Caecilian households.

Cleopatra, Alpheus, and I took our seats at a small, round table, while Hermes and Apollodorus stood behind us, each leaning against the wall, arms folded, one foot propped against the wall behind him, eyes scanning the room, studiedly ignoring the other.

“I’ve never been inside such a place!” Cleopatra said, her eyes sparkling beneath the cowl.

“I can well believe it,” I said. “Ptolemaic princesses are gently if extravagantly reared. You may take it from me though that your father has been in many such.” Gossip had it that old Ptolemy Auletes had made his living, when young, playing the flute in places far more disreputable than this one. Now that he was a king and a god, he sometimes missed the old days.

“Here,” said Alpheus, “you have exposure to a different world. Heretofore your education has been that given by scholars and philosophers and courtiers training you for your future role as queen and mother of the next king. You know of the real world of the common people only from reading. It is not a bad thing for one who will one day rule to see at firsthand how most of the world lives.”