The Princess and the Pirates(25)

“At last bold Orpheus, he who dared enter the dread land of Hades, went forth into the holy light of Apollo, and with a final note ended his incomparable song, and turning to let his eyes drink in the sight of his beloved wife, saw to his horror that she still stood the distance of but a single pace within the mouth of the awful cave. Alas! But a moment’s vision had he of his beloved, and with a despairing cry she faded from his view, to return to the home of the pitiless Lord of the Underworld, there to dwell forever.”

Alpheus ended his song neatly just as we arrived before the Temple of Poseidon. We applauded him heartily, even Ariston, who didn’t impress me as much of an aesthete. As lyric poems go it wasn’t all that distinguished, a minor variation on a well-worn theme. Plus, as I remembered the sequence of steps to the Underworld, Cerberus stood on guard between the Styx and the Asphodel Fields, not between the fields and the home of Hades.

But, considering that it was composed extempore, in a fog of wine fumes, and timed perfectly to end at our destination, Alpheus had earned his applause.

“Now, Ariston, come with me. Princess, I take it that you have been trained in hieratical duties?”

“I am a priestess of Isis, an initiate in the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Cult of Dionysus, and—”

“We don’t need anything that specialized. I just need you to act as witness and pour the sacrifice at the proper moment.”

So we climbed the steps to the splendid altar that stood before the temple. With Cleopatra holding the wine jar, I borrowed Hermes’s sword and, grasping it by the sheath, held it out toward Ariston, who placed his horny palm on its hilt. Then I administered the oath, which is a sacred thing and not to be written down. At the required moment, Cleopatra poured the wine onto the altar and we watched as it ran down the blood channel to the drain that would carry it to the earth below.

“That’s that, then,” I said, tossing the weapon back to Hermes. “Welcome to the service of Rome. Stay in the navy for twenty years, and you’ll be rewarded with citizenship.”

Ariston laughed loudly. “So that I can spend a few years of doddering old age privileged to vote some thief into office?”

“You could take up residence in some thriving little municipality, get elected to office, and line your own purse. Plenty of clever veterans have done that.”

“The wonders of living in a republic,” Cleopatra said bemusedly. We began to stroll across the plaza toward the governor’s mansion when I stopped in my tracks at an all too familiar sound: a triple slither of blades leaving sheaths. Hermes, Apollodorus, and Ariston had drawn in the same instant. I had heard nothing to alarm me, but that didn’t slow me down. My hands dived into my tunic and emerged with my dagger in my right fist and the spiked, bronze bar of my caestus across the knuckles of my left. I scandalized my family by brawling with such low-bred weapons, but they had saved my life in too many dark streets for me to entrust it to any others.

“How many?” I asked.

“We’ll know soon,” Hermes said.

“Hold this,” Apollodorus said, handing his torch to Cleopatra. She took it, eyes gone wide as he took his position just behind her to the right, where he could keep her in view and she would not interfere with his sword arm. He would ignore the rest of us, but nobody would touch Cleopatra while he was alive. Hermes stood back-to-back with me, and Ariston stood half crouched a few feet away, his eyes darting in all directions. Alpheus stood rigid, his torch held aloft, eyes bugged out in astonished terror.

All this was the work of an instant, and in the next instant they attacked.

With a hideous screech, they closed on us in a half circle. I had no time to make a count, but I knew they outnumbered us grievously. Well, I’d been in that situation before. The answer was to carve down their numbers as quickly as possible. I was surrounded by glittering metal and then the first of them was on me in a wash of wine-and-garlic breath. He cut high, going for my throat, and I ducked low, stepping in to drive my caestus into the bundle of nerves in his armpit. He squawked at the unexpected pain, and I drove my dagger in somewhere in the vicinity of his midriff.

The man dropped away from me just in time for me to see one dart past Cleopatra. Apollodorus thrust his sword out almost lazily, and the man stopped with a look of wonder as a great fountain of blood erupted from his throat. The really great swordsmen always seem to move slowly. Then I had no more time to appreciate his technique as another was on me. Meantime I could hear a series of grunts behind me and hoped that. Hermes was coping well, as my back would feel terribly bare otherwise.